If Mike Tyson moved in next door to you, then before you saw his famous pet white tigers, the man himself would ring your doorbell. He is legally compelled to introduce himself as a registered sex offender. Tyson is a convicted rapist, arrested after assaulting an 18-year-old girl in 1992. He served a truncated sentence and, in a 2003 interview to Fox News—while continuing to claim innocence—said that the case brought him so much pain that “now I really do want to rape her.”
Remorse has never been his strongest suit. Accused of having beaten up ex-wife Robin Givens, the 1989 book Fire And Fear: The Inside Story Of Mike Tyson quotes the boxer not only as admitting to having hit her but boasting about the blow, saying “that was the best punch I’d thrown in my entire life”.
It may appear a no-brainer that the ear-biting boxer celebrated for being “the baddest man in the world” is not a particularly nice human being, but I’m baffled that Tyson has any sort of career in the public eye. He’s been meme-fied to the point of cuddliness, a lisping monster saying silly things to children in Instagram Reels and making fun of himself in movies like The Hangover—and, in 2022, the mainstream Indiann film Liger. Apparently its fine to have a convicted rapist on movie posters.
Mike Tyson is currently being investigated on entirely new rape charges, even as he’s gotten a reported $20 million from Netflix for a live event where he fought YouTube sensation Jake Paul—and lost.
Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson, broadcast live around the world on 16 November, was the biggest Netflix event in recent history, showing that the streaming platform has seemingly woken up to the idea of live spectacle—I say “spectacle” instead of “sport” because a boxing match between a 27-year-old and a 58-year-old qualifies more as circusry than pugilism. The hype took over social media, but the match itself was laughable—eight rounds where the younger man showed more stamina than the wobbly-legged Tyson. This was not Ali-Frazier, not even Rocky-Drago—it was a cacophonous collision of TikTok-era banter and geriatric bravado, a match that landed with the grace of a dad joke at a Gen Z poetry slam.
Jake Paul, enfant terrible of YouTube who marketed himself as a pseudo-boxer, has crafted a career less on punches than punchlines. Rising from viral prankster to a “professional” fighter who cherry-picks opponents like a nervous gambler picking horses, Paul’s trajectory is a masterclass in the algorithm-driven ascent of mediocrity. His claim to fame in the ring? Beating a series of celebrities and ex-athletes, none of whom were actual boxers in their prime.
The fight itself? Tyson huffed, Paul stayed chuffed. It was less a match than a viral meme in waiting. It felt like watching the least woke old man in the world argue pronouns with a Gen Z influencer: utterly exhausting. Many have accused the non-fight of being fixed, while some are suing Netflix for its servers crashing during live coverage.
Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson was a total knock out for Netflix, though. On Tuesday, the streamer declared that 108 million people worldwide tuned into the fight, an announcement that took their stock prices to record highs.
For Netflix, the quality of the match didn’t matter. Mike Tyson is to them the sporting equivalent of old Intellectual Property, too legitimately famous to be left alone—and yes, I’m aware that is the only context in which the word “intellectual” can be used in a sentence about Tyson. What’s next for Netflix and sport? The streamer will start showing World Wrestling Entertainment starting in January, trying to make the pro-wrestling subculture mainstream. (Though one could argue that WWE Hall of Famer Donald Trump may be doing that already).
The resounding success of this “boxing match” however makes me wonder whether Hotstar had the right idea all along, with its impressive viewership numbers forever bolstered by cricket, with the Indian Premier League doing exponentially better than any season of any series. Is live sport the (somewhat obvious) secret sauce for the streaming platforms in their quest for subscriber numbers, what with its exclusivity and urgency and relative un-pirate-ability? As someone happily forking over an annual fee for subscribing to the Formula One app to watch 24 races a year (not to mention the classics), I can vouch for the appeal.
Could sport save our shows, then? Can boxers or cricketers or football players make up the incessant demands of streaming platforms to keep growing their numbers? Could enough instances of M.S. Dhoni turning up to play three deliveries help our favourite underperforming shows from being cancelled? It’s an interesting thought, though the fear is that if the streamers realise that sports work better than shows then it might just lead to lesser shows instead of better ones.
There is something, however, to be said about watching something live, alongside audiences from 190 plus countries. Like with the Oscars, when people from all over the world tune in for something special, then—more often than not—the truly special thing is the fact that they have all tuned in. We are all the prize. Now if only the fight meant something.
