The texts started rolling in during my 12:15 Intro to Screenwriting course. They came from my best friend, a podcast co-host, my son, my former pastor, a guy I co-own a publishing company with…and they all said the same thing: “Mike Tyson is fighting Jake Paul…what do you think of this?” I got the texts because my friends know that I love boxing, and that my first book (“Facing Tyson,” 2006, Lyons Press) was about Mike Tyson. I love my friends, and feel weirdly cared-for when they float things like this through my digital transom.
My replies were all something along the lines of, “Words can’t express how much I hate this…come Lord Jesus.”
For the uninitiated: Mike Tyson is the former “baddest man on the planet” and the greatest heavyweight boxer of my lifetime. Jake Paul is a social-media-guy-turned-boxer. Both men have face tattoos. Both men have huge audiences and are kind of sad, tragic, figures. Both men are rich and will be yet-richer after this fight. Both men are fighting a larger battle, for self-respect, and are losing.
“I hope Christ returns before this,” is both a statement of fact (I long for it, in general), and also a laser-specific, overly-dramatic way to respond to this very dumb thing happening in July on Netflix. This dumb thing represents the further degradation of a thing I care very deeply for (boxing) and a person who I really root for and want good for (Tyson). I can’t say that I care much about Jake Paul at all…but must admit that I started feeling something for him when it looked like he was going to try to be a real, working, professional boxer.
And then this happened.
The fact of the matter is that even at age 50-something, Mike Tyson could still be very dangerous for a couple of rounds, if he wanted to, which would make this fight interesting. But he for sure won’t want to (more later).
And Paul could actually enhance his life and his reputation if he got in shape, fought really hard, bled, and got a hole stomped into him by Mike Tyson (as many other respectable fighters have before). Only in boxing can a man lose a fight and gain both self-respect and the respect of others. This for sure won’t happen either.
Here’s what will actually happen: They will both feign hatred for the other in pre-fight pressers – which hatred doesn’t actually exist. Tyson will amble into the ring covered head-to-toe in sad advertisements for all the weed-legalization concerns in which he is a part owner. Paul will preen into the ring in ways that have become very predictable for Jake Paul…selling energy drinks and whatever other products have attached themselves to his persona for the evening.
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