Despite some delays and questions from the peanut gallery about whether it would ever happen, the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul fight is on track again. The former Heavyweight Champion is reportedly healthy and ready to put his gloves back on, and Paul is, of course, still game for what should be the most hyped and most lucrative fight of his boxing career. Just don’t call it the pinnacle of his career though.
Paul was asked about his goals in boxing during the fighters’ shared press conference at New York City’s Fanatics Fest, and let the record show, he is definitely not done after Mike Tyson. Paul has taken an extremely untraditional route up the boxing ladder since he started his journey fighting other social media stars, but at some point, he apparently wants to step on a more traditional path and start fighting for championships. Here’s what he said…
I'm still on the path to become world champion. There's a lot of shit talkers out there, a lot of big names who want to fight me. I still want Canelo Alvarez and I want to go on the path to world championship and that's what I'm here to do. And I will make it happen. And when it happens, people are going to go, ‘God damn that kid did something we didn't.’
Ordinarily, you wouldn’t double take at hearing a successful fighter with a 10-1 record wants to be world champion, but in the case of Paul, it’s extremely noteworthy because it would likely mean a pivot to that more conventional path. Traditionally, if you want to get started in the ring, you take some under-under-undercard fights against relatively innocuous opponents. Then, you use the strength of those wins to progress your way up the card until, eventually, you start getting the chance to fight people fans may have heard of. If you win those, then you start fighting other leading contenders and, if all goes well, get a crack at a world championship at some point and maybe even a headlining slot on a pay-per-view.
That’s not what Jake Paul has done up to this point, however. After beating up some of his fellow YouTubers and viciously KOing former NBA star Nate Robinson, Paul started fighting aging MMA stars with big resumes and light boxing experience in events his company organized and put on. To date, he’s fought and beaten the likes of Nate Diaz, Anderson Silva, Tyron Woodley, all in highly publicized PPVs he’s assumedly made a very healthy profit off of. The next of those fights is against Mike Tyson, the biggest name of them all, and it promises to be the most publicized event of Paul’s career. It’s scheduled to take place in AT&T Stadium, which has a capacity of 80,000, and it will be streamed live on Netflix.
Mike Tyson is obviously one of the most feared and respected heavyweight boxers of all-time, but he’s also pushing 60 and is roughly 30 years older than Jake Paul. The rules have been modified to account for that with two minute rounds instead of three. Fans aren’t quite sure what to expect, as Paul will obviously have a huge speed advantage but could be in trouble if he runs into a big punch, given he’s had 44 knockouts over the course of his career.
Regardless, and with all due respect to Tyson who is an absolute legend, it’ll still be a sideshow attraction type fight. The jury is still very much out as to whether Paul can compete with real boxers his own age, especially since the one time he tried against Tyson Fury, he lost in a controversial split decision, despite knocking Fury down once. If he wants to pursue championships, he’s going to face a lot tougher competition, and that’s to say nothing of Canelo Alvarez, who he also called out.
Alvarez is 61-2-2 in his boxing career, but he also typically fights at around 160 pounds. Jake Paul was 200 pounds during his last fight and is rumored to be trying to go up to 220 or 230 for his fight against Tyson. So, Paul could go down that road, which Alvarez might be down for given it could be a huge payday, but that would once again represent a sideshow/ attraction type fight, given the big weight difference. Or he could pursue the more traditional path and start taking on boxers his own size.
We’ll just have to wait and see what Paul’s next move is. If he beats Tyson, he should have his pick of opponents, whether he wants to go the traditional route or not.
