Mike Tyson Punches Out

I feel gross. Also ashamed. Watching the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight on Netflix felt like accidentally watching a VHS tape you were never meant to see. I should’ve known. We all should’ve known. But I watched anyway. Because it was Tyson.

Tyson’s career came in like a tiger and went out like a kitten. (Honestly, he should knock me out for writing that.) But I don’t mean it as an insult. Everyone loves kittens.

Shame in my final round

I feel shame. Shame in my final round of watching the boxing legend of my generation.

How people keep falling for these spectacle fights is beyond me. Obviously, I’m one of them.

Why I Still Fell for It

I blame it on having witnessed peak Tyson. The golden-era version. The one with the lightning uppercut. The menace. The guy who, after wrecking his opponent, would rush over to check if they were okay.

The Nintendo one.

This one:

Or even this one:

I also blame my shame on Tyson’s twilight ascendence to respectability, you know, After The Hangover, after the podcast tours, after “Lockdown Knockdown” with Roy Jones, Jr.

I know he’s been doing it for the money, but that fight with Jones? It was fun. Nostalgic, but respectable. Tyson still had a flicker of magic. Just enough to justify a final bow.

He’d completed his full redemption arc.

I shared that match with my teenagers. Told them stories. Watched their eyes widen. The myth still worked. I closed the book on his career with reverence.

And then I watched this.

Not Even the Good Kind of Bad

It wasn’t even embarrassing in a funny way. It was just... wrong. Violated, maybe. Like the kind of thing you regret immediately but don’t know why.

I felt bad for Tyson. But not really. He’s a grown man. He made his choice. And hey, he lasted eight rounds. I didn’t think he’d last three. He wasn’t out of shape. He just looked old.

There was no flash of brilliance. No hint of the old fury. Just shadows. You could almost see the intention form and dissolve before it reached his fists.

The Opponent Was Fine, I Guess

Jake Paul?

He was better than Glass Joe. Not quite Von Kaiser.

To his credit, Paul seemed grateful. Humbled, even. But what else could he do? Play the villain?

Background Noise and Regret

I don’t know why I watched. It wasn’t cultural FOMO. It wasn’t the Super Bowl. I walked the dogs. Answered email. Ignored the dishes. The fight was background noise.

And yet, I felt worse after. Not in an epic, tragic, Shakespearean way. Just... lesser. As if I’d traded some memory of greatness for a Netflix algorithm pick.

Shaq, Gronk, Lennox Lewis—they didn’t help. Not even a novelty boost.

The best fight of the night? The women’s undercard.

But Tyson vs. Paul?

It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t even entertaining.

One Last Spark That Wasn’t There

I should’ve seen it coming. Maybe I did. Maybe I wanted one more flash. One last spark from the CRT days of my childhood.

But the arc was already complete. And this was just unnecessary.

Both the event itself. And my watching it.

(He got $20 million, by the way. That’s probably what it cost me in pride.)

Reference: Mike Tyson earned $20M in 2006 for an exhibition bout