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Imagine telling someone in 2013 that a Disney kid and the "Baddest Man on the Planet" would be fighting in the most-streamed boxing event in history, in front of a sold-out crowd at Jerry World. Oh, and by the way, it would be broadcast on Netflix (yes, the DVD rental company). A wild statement back then—and even wilder today.
The Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight has just concluded, and is anyone really surprised that it was a flop? If your Netflix is still trying to load the stream: the 27-year-old Paul defeated the 58-year-old Tyson. Breaking news.
As much as people wanted to see Tyson knock out the YouTuber, the result was as dull as could be. A slow-moving, uneventful boxing match. The unanimous decision came as no surprise because, honestly, nothing happened. Paul controlled the fight, and Tyson never really engaged. It’s a lose-lose for both parties, even though they cashed in major paydays. Sure, Jake Paul can now claim he beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match (and we’ll undoubtedly hear about it for decades to come), but the whole thing felt staged. Months of tough-guy hype led to one of the most boring spectacles ever. The sad part about this is the legacy of Tyson getting tarnished by this.
And as bad as the fight was, Netflix completely fell flat on delivering the event. The stream lagged, users couldn’t log in, the quality was terrible—it was the ultimate disaster on the Costco Guy scale. If they couldn’t get this right, how will they handle the NFL?
This was, without a doubt, one of the worst sports products I’ve ever seen. The fight was a joke. The stream quality was abysmal. The broadcast team was awful. Honestly, the highlight of the night was AB live-streaming from his box suite on X, or the interview crew accidentally capturing a video of Tyson’s bare bum for millions to see.
At the end of the day, it was a scam from the moment it was announced, and a con-show from start to finish. After repeatedly refreshing our screens in vain, all we got was a scripted, lackluster performance with no real effort in the ring. Meanwhile, Paul and Tyson added tens of millions to their bank accounts.
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