White Reacts To Paul Vs. Tyson ‘S—t Show’

“You knew what you were gonna get when you saw that fight, so you can’t be mad.”

Dana White has some complex thoughts regarding Friday’s big Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight on Netflix. On one hand, he hates Jake Paul and Paul’s business manager / former UFC executive Nakisa Bidarian. On the other hand, he’s friends with Mike Tyson and his parent company is in business with Netflix. So he’s refrained from slagging the event too seriously up to this point.

On Saturday following UFC 309, the UFC CEO gave credit to Tyson for ‘being right’ about the match-up while still calling the fight what it was: a shit show.

“I told him, ‘Mike, you’re basically 60 years old,’ and he’s like, ‘You honestly think this f—ing kid’s gonna do anything to me? He’s not good. He’s not gonna f—ing knock me out. He’s not gonna do this,’” White said.

“You saw him. He tripped when he was walking down to the ring. He had a hard time walking up the stairs. He had a knee brace on, and Jake Paul still couldn’t do anything to him. He made a ton of money, and I know people are mad. You stayed home on a Friday night, but you didn’t pay for it, you know what I mean?”

“When Mike Tyson shows up, everybody makes money,” he added. “Mike Tyson is the A+++ side of that thing, and he was right: Jake Paul couldn’t do s— to him. So he was right, and I was wrong.”

As for all the critics who were quick to call the fight a con and a scam?

“(Dave) Portnoy went out and said that it was the greatest con job of all time,” White said. “But if you didn’t think that’s the way the fight — I don’t know what people expected. Mike’s almost 60 years old. He’s Mike Tyson, but he’s 60 years old, and he knew that Jake Paul couldn’t do anything to him.”

“You knew what you were gonna get when you saw that fight, so you can’t be mad. It was f—ing free. We all got Netflix anyway, right? And you got to watch [Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor] fight, and the girls fight was good.”

“I know a lot of people were pissed, and it was bit of a s— show, but what did you expect? Seriously, when you stayed home and you turned on Netflix that night, were you like, ‘Holy f—, I’m about to see the greatest live sporting event of all time!’ No, you f—ing did not. You got exactly what you thought you were gonna get.”

White claimed the whole thing was something of a test run for Netflix’s upcoming live NFL streams — something the company clearly needed because of how badly the service performed during Paul vs. Tyson.

“For Netflix, this thing was brilliant because they knew it was gonna pull a massive number because of Mike Tyson,” he said. “And to be fair to Jake, you’re gonna tune in to watch him get knocked out, hopefully. That’s what everybody wants to see.”

“They needed to do this test. They got the NFL coming at Christmas. They’re just getting into live sports. They needed to do this to test something that they knew would pull a big number on, and Mike Tyson pulls big numbers.”