Mike Tyson‘s underwhelming ring return against Jake Paul continues to dominate the conversation in the sport.
The 58-year-old heavyweight icon agreed to eight two-minute rounds against Paul, 27, in one of the most high-profile and lucrative sporting events in recent memory. Unfortunately for fans, the main event action didn’t match the hype. ‘Iron’ Mike was competitive for an extremely short amount of time before the YouTuber-turned-fighter cruised to a unanimous points decision.
Videos and rumours have since circled online that there could have been a pre-fight agreement or ‘script’ in place to determine the outcome. As a professionally sanctioned bout with a large amount of betting interest, these were completely unfounded.
Promoter Eddie Hearn – who was in attendance to support his fighter Katie Taylor against Amanda Serrano in the chief support – told IFL TV any claims of the sort are ‘ridiculous.’
“When people like casual fans say ‘do you think it was scripted?’ I don’t. At all. It’s ridiculous. And I don’t think you could ask Mike Tyson to do that.”
Hearn, despite not being a fan of the match-up, then gave Tyson credit.
“Mike tried. I have to give Mike credit. And actually, I’ll be honest. when the fight was over I did think to myself it’s pretty cool for Tyson to have done that. For his kids to see him do that. He’s gone through a hard training camp, done eight rounds. Fair play to him.
I didn’t enjoy watching it if I’m honest. I quite enjoyed the first 30 seconds when he was having a right go, but it was a spectacle. It was never gonna be fight of the century. I said my piece before, I wasn’t a massive fan of it, but look what it created. You’ve got to acknowledge the commercial reality as well.”
Tyson has since confirmed it was his last bout. Paul moves ahead with an 11-1 pro record, now featuring one of the sport’s biggest names albeit with a big asterisk.
