The madness swept through an anonymous breakfast bar in Arlington, just outside Dallas, shortly after six a.m. on Tuesday. Sleepy diners stared at a bank of television screens that had been lit up with images of two contrasting men from the early morning NBC news.
In front of them, a suave anchorman promised that Friday night’s manufactured scrap in north Texas between “the 58-year-old boxing icon Iron Mike Tyson and the Problem Child, Jake Paul,” would transport us “back to the glory days of boxing”.
As if we needed any more convincing, the screen then filled with the scraggly bearded face of Paul, “the 27-year-old YouTube sensation,” who praised the Dallas Cowboys’ owners for sharing his vision of staging “the biggest fight in the history of boxing” at their AT&T Stadium, only 10 miles from where we sat drinking our lukewarm coffee.
We didn’t hear the ghosts of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Sonny Liston, or Muhammad Ali howling in pain. Instead, if they had been forced to listen to the world’s rambling inanity in 2024, they might have laughed.
Twelve hours later, at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, a 20-minute drive from Arlington, Tyson and Paul held a public workout to kick off this bizarre fight week, which will end in fisticuffs on Netflix. Tyson was described as “ferocious” as he backed his cornerman into the ropes.
The trainer wore a body protector that absorbed the blows, and Tyson demonstrated good head movement as he threw some relatively fast combinations. But it’s easy for a former world champion when no one is fighting back.
Tyson appeared fatigued after that burst of activity, and it’s unclear how he’ll handle eight two-minute rounds against a man 31 years younger than him. Paul is a new professional, but Tyson appeared downcast as he waited to be interviewed in the ring.
A young woman turned to face the crowd, draped a black towel around his bare shoulders. “Texas, you better get louder than that,” she yelled. Tyson’s sad old face dripped with sweat as he patiently waited.
“Mr Mike Tyson, it is so different to witness it here versus watching it on your phone or online,” the woman exclaimed enthusiastically as she praised his brief workout. “It is something spectacular that I don’t think any of us have ever seen before.”
I remembered the last time I was alone with Tyson and his trainers, which was in a Las Vegas gym in 1991. It was a closed sparring session, and he had worked with Jesse Ferguson before I interviewed him. When they fought five years ago, Tyson claimed he tried to drive Ferguson’s nose into his brain before knocking him out.
Tyson’s unhinged malevolence persisted in 1991, and it was disturbing to see him rip left hooks into Ferguson’s sagging midriff and long right crosses to the jaw with serious intent. The force of Tyson’s punches sprayed the air with sweat and water, as if he had struck a small geyser hidden inside his sparring partner’s skull. Feeling some of the sticky wetness on my face, I retreated to a safe distance.
Tyson appeared intimidating, but his best years as a fighter were behind him. The fighter I saw that afternoon was no match for the world champion who, in 1988, annihilated the previously unrivaled Michael Spinks with a display of fury and skill that, for 91 seconds, captured the essence of boxing.
Thirty-six years after that career high, Tyson was asked what he had learned about himself since starting training for Paul.
The former Baddest Man on the Planet paused before saying: “That I’m tougher than I thought I was because, when I agreed to this fight and started training, I thought, ‘What the fuck was I thinking of?'” But I’ve completed the process. The fight is the party. “All the hard work has been completed.”
Tyson was reminded that Netflix has 282 million subscribers and he is expected to fight in front of the biggest crowd of his career on Friday night. He was asked if he had ever thought such a night would entail him fighting Jake Paul.
He shook his head forlornly and spread his hands wide. “Never in a million years,” Tyson said in his soft, lisping voice.
Tyson was asked about his family and, perhaps a little hard of hearing these days, murmured: “Say that once again, please.”
He made a joke that all aging fathers could understand: “To my children, I’m nothing … they take me for granted.” They say things to me that no one else would.
But he smiled when he said that on Friday night, “they’re going to find out their father is very special”.
Tyson, who recognizes the historical significance of Johnson, Louis, and Ali, as well as his own lower status in the heavyweight pantheon, was asked what it would mean if he could defeat Paul. He admirably refused to answer the question.
“All I can say is ‘Thank you, God,'” Tyson stated.
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The woman introduced “the disrupter, the man who has revolutionized boxing in four years…” after he had passed away. Jake ‘El Gallo’ Paul, known as the Problem Child, is the most influential boxing figure today.
Wearing a red rooster wig in honor of his nickname in Puerto Rico, where he now resides, Paul cut an absurd and chunky figure. He said after his leaden workout, “I feel really good, sharp, powerful, and explosive. It will be a short night for Mike.”
But he admitted that his mother, who is clearly old enough to remember the terror Tyson once instilled in boxing, was worried. “She is nervous. She dislikes watching Mike Tyson throw punches because she is scared.
The YouTuber dressed as a rooster turned to his mother and said, “But Mom, I promise you, I was made for this, I was destined for this. On November 15, I, Jake Joseph Paul, will knock out Mike Tyson. It is written in the fucking history books.”
