Mike Tyson is fighting Jake Paul this summer on Netflix and the haters can’t stand it.
But don’t expect the avalanche of criticism to faze “Iron” Mike, who takes pride in the fact that he’s selling out the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, which has a capacity of 80,000 seats (or up to 105,000 with standing room access).
Add to that his BILLIONS of pre-fight views.
“I’m 58 and what? I’m getting billions of views from just talking to somebody from fighting.” Tyson said in an interview with Reuters. “Everybody, even most of the athletes, they’re jealous. That’s wack. ‘He’s 58, he’s 57.’ I say in your prime, you couldn’t draw a million people, man. What are you talking? You couldn’t sell out an arena. Who, at 58, could sell out an 80,000-seat arena?”
Paul, 27, made his boxing debut with a thunderous knockout victory over NBA star Nate Robinson back in late 2020, which helped the 57 year-old Tyson hit 1.2 million pay-per-view (PPV) buys for his exhibition match against fellow pugilist Roy Jones Jr. in Los Angeles.
Four years later they’ll come face-to-face, establishing a new “final boss” in the process.
“Why you think he wants to fight me and not anybody else?” Tyson continued. “Everybody wants to fight him. All the boxers want to fight him. But if he fought them, the only people that will come are the people that like him. The other guys, their parents might not even come watch them. That’s just keeping it real. They’re too boring for their children to watch. It’s like watching grass grow.”
The exhibition bout against Jones Jr. marked the last time Tyson saw action inside the ring. “Iron” Mike previously told the combat sport media that he was retired from boxing and would not be making another comeback; however, it appears the allure of a Paul fight — or perhaps the payday that comes with it — was too much to resist.
Time to see if the “bully” can finally get bullied.