Boxing | At 58, Mike Tyson returns to the ring

(Arlington) Aged 58, heavyweight legend Mike Tyson returns to the ring for a professional exhibition-style fight on Friday against YouTuber Jake Paul.

Supported by streaming giant Netflix and Jake Paul’s promotion company Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the event scheduled for 7 p.m. brings Mike Tyson back into the ring, at an advanced age, against a YouTuber became a 27-year-old boxer, who was therefore not born during the time of his opponent’s splendor.

Many observers, including former American boxing world champion Deontay Wilder, have expressed concern about seeing a nearly sixty-year-old lined up in a professional fight, saying they fear a serious injury.

Tyson had to postpone the fight initially scheduled for July 20, after receiving medical treatment on May 26 aboard a plane in which he complained of nausea and dizziness.

The organizers insist on the professional nature of the fight, contested with the approval of the Texan commission responsible for licensing for boxing fights, for eight 2-minute rounds, instead of the twelve 3-minute rounds often practiced by the pros.

Tyson has not boxed professionally since June 2005 and a defeat against Irishman Kevin McBride.

During his tumultuous career that began in 1985, “Iron Mike”, world heavyweight champion, had won 50 victories including 44 by knockout, but had also suffered six defeats, his first in 1990 against James “Buster » Douglas in Tokyo, and two others who remained famous against Evander Holyfield in 1996 and 1997.

His last world championship dates back to 2002, in Memphis, where the Briton Lennox Lewis sent him to the mat in the eighth round.

Jake Paul, a YouTuber with 20.8 million subscribers, has already fought ten professional fights, winning nine.

He had already faced an old ring glory, the American Floyd Mayweather Jr., during an exhibition in June 2021.

Formerly a very popular sport, boxing struggles to stay in the spotlight, and in recent years has multiplied unconventional posters, such as those of Jake Paul, or the clashes between the king of mixed martial arts Francis Ngannou and the heavyweights Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua .

On the main fight card in Arlington, the undisputed Irish super-lightweight world champion Katie Taylor faces the Puerto Rican Amanda Serrano, featherweight champion who is moving up in category, whom she had already beaten in April 2022.