Coach Rafael Cordeiro plans on pushing Jake Paul into panic mode when the YouTube star steps inside the ring with heavyweight legend ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson on July 20.
Emanating from the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium, ‘The Problem Child’ will seek his 10th career win inside the squared circle when he meets the “baddest man on the planet” live on Netflix. Preparing Tyson for the encounter is Cordeiro, the proprietor of Kings MMA in California. Before that, he made a name for himself in the MMA world as a Muay Thai coach at Chute Boxe.
“This fight won’t be a massacre, it’s going to be a very technical match, because we have a kid on the other side that can box and isn’t afraid,” Cordeiro told MMA Fighting. “Mike has such heavy hands, and it will be impossible not to touch Jake. Jake will feel Mike’s hands, there’s no other way, and that’s when we’ll have an idea on how the fight will go. It’s going to be interesting to see.”
As a professional boxer, Jake Paul is 9-1 with six of his victories coming by way of knockout.
By the time he steps inside the ring with Mike Tyson, the former unified heavyweight champion will be 58 years old — 31 years older than his opposition. Despite that, Cordeiro believes that Tyson’s iconic power is still there and is confident that Paul will panic once he gets a taste of it.
“Panic — he will panic,” Cordeiro said with a laugh. “That’s the goal. Our goal is to keep Jake in a panic the entire fight. Or for as long as he can take it.”
Rafael Cordeiro Commends Jake Paul’s boxing skills
No official announcement has been made, but according to Cordeiro, Paul vs. Tyson will be a professional boxing match. If that proves to be true, it will be Tyson’s first pro fight since suffering a loss to Kevin McBride in 2005.
Tyson has since stepped inside the ring, competing in an exhibition boxing match with fellow legend Roy Jones Jr. in November 2020. Before going eight rounds with RJJ, Tyson had done very little in the way of training, but, ‘Iron’ has stayed active in the gym ever since.
“Unlike the first camp, [Tyson] won’t be coming off 15 years away [from the ring],” Cordeiro said. “He’s been training ever since, and that makes all the difference. It’s going to be good. We still got four more months for the fight, so he will be ready.”
“There’s the age difference, and there’s the factor that [Paul] is competing more often, but he’s facing someone with enormous experience,” he continued. “Mike doesn’t train for some time, and when he returns, the explosiveness, the movement, it’s like he never stopped. More than who hits the hardest, it’s about the technique. Jake has good boxing. You can’t say otherwise. He’s winning the fights, and his loss is a split decision to a legit boxer, not a MMA champion, and that shows the kid knows how to box.”