“At the end of the day, no one gives a f**k about Mike. We can talk about the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, they don’t give a f**k.”
Jake Paul suggests his Mike Tyson fight could end with a fatality.
Considering that boxers have been known to pass away inside the ring or shortly thereafter, as was the case with British pugilist Sherif Lawal last weekend in the United Kingdom, those comments stand in particularly poor taste. They may also reflect a troubling reality about their July 20 showdown on Netflix.
Their bout could in fact revolutionize boxing … but perhaps not the way they intended.
“I think it’s bad the commission licensed Mike Tyson because he hasn’t been active in 20 years, so they should not just license him because of who he is, that’s how people get hurt,” former WBC Heavyweight Champion Deontay Wilder told Sportsbook Review (via Daily Mail). “God forbid he gets hurt. People can get hit in the wrong place and at the wrong time, there’s lots of examples where guys have been hit into a coma. It’s easy to do. He’s too old for this. At the end of the day, no one gives a f**k about Mike. We can talk about the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, they don’t give a f**k.”
They didn’t give a f**k about Evander Holyfield, either.
Outside of his exhibition bout against Roy Jones Jr. back in late 2020, Tyson has not competed since registering a referee technical decision loss to Kevin McBride in June 2005, when “Iron” was 38 years old. By the time he steps into the ring against Paul, 27, Tyson will be 58. That didn’t stop Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations (TDLR) from rubber-stamping his pro return.
At what cost remains to be seen.
“I don’t think anyone cares about Mike because if they did they wouldn’t sanction the fight,” Wilder continued. “They may say they’ve done tests and all that, okay, but as long as you’re willing to suffer the consequences if something bad goes wrong. His power may not have left completely but you still need to set it up, your stamina needs to be a certain way, or it’s going to look like a clown show. I don’t want to see it to be honest. I don’t want the last thing I remember of him is him getting knocked out by a YouTuber. The last thing you do, that’s what people remember you by.”
Paul promised their will be “no holding back” on July 20.