Over the course of Mike Tyson’s lengthy, varied and controversial life in the spotlight, there have been many reasons to fear him.
At the conclusion of the farcical scenes at AT&T Stadium in Texas on Saturday, he gave us reason to fear for him.
“I don’t know,” Tyson mumbled in the ring when asked if this was it for him as a professional boxer.
“It depends on the situation.
“I don’t think so.”
It’s hard to know what one should feel for Tyson when he utters such nonsense.
Scorn? Bewilderment? Anger? Pity?
They are all valid.
Jake Paul won the fight by unanimous decision. (Getty Images: Al Bello)
This is a man who, beyond any doubt, changed the face of boxing during his brutal, terrifying reign as world heavyweight champion.
This is a man who, through his own reprehensible behaviour, spent some of his best years in jail after being convicted for rape.
But he is also a man who has struggled with addiction and drug use.
This is a man who, at 58 years old, is clearly, desperately, trying to recapture some of the adrenaline buzz that comes from stepping into the squared circle with only your skills, wits, physicality and fists standing between you and serious injury.
The impossible-to-replicate rush of thousands of people baying for blood ringside, beholden to the brutal fistic magic contained within your gloves.
It is understandable, in so many ways, that Tyson continues to chase that rush.
Fighting in front of 72,000 at AT&T Stadium is a rush that cannot be replicated. (Getty Images: Sportsfile/Stephen McCarthy)
He is not the first and will not be the last professional athlete to struggle when the knowledge hits that the crowds will no longer sing their name.
But for anyone who saw the sad shell of a man labour around the ring in Arlington — and thousands upon thousands of people did — there can be no doubt about Tyson’s future. And none of those plans should involve him stepping inside a ring ever again.
Of course, given the interest this fight generated, there will be an argument that this is, in fact, a future worth pursuing. Give the people what they want.
But any authority that sanctions such an event risks ridicule at best. A manslaughter charge at worst.
From the moment Tyson walked to the ring, the difference in what most boxing fans remembered and what they saw was laid bare.
Those who had hoped for the same menacing, gladiatorial march to the ring, the chilling harbinger of doom about to come the way of whoever he was facing that typified Tyson’s professional career were instead confronted by what can only be described as an elderly man, uncertain in his gaze.
It was less executioner, more condemned.
Mike Tyson wore his traditional black smock for his ring walk, but it failed to capture the menacing aura he used to hold. (Getty Images: Matt Winkelmeyer)
Throughout the fight that sense continued.
Tyson’s strapped knee, an injury he refused to talk about post-fight, may have hindered his uncertain movement in the ring.
But that cannot be blamed for all his clear and obvious frailty, the former baddest man in boxing reduced to an impotent husk of a fighter.
Punch stats are a lazy, flawed statistic too often leaned upon by the uneducated, but the stats can still be revealing in this case. Tyson landed just 18 shots across the eight, 2-minute rounds. That’s just over one a minute.
He only threw 97 in total, an 18 per cent success rate.
When Tyson was able to land, the shots did not hurt Paul.
“I love Mike Tyson, but they [are] giving him too much credit,” Terrence Crawford wrote on X.
“He looked like trash, to train that long and only throw 97 punches the whole fight is crazy. I’m just glad he didn’t get hurt out there.”
While there was an unexpectedly touching moment at the end of the bout where the YouTuber bowed to Tyson, the moment that stuck more in the memory was the 27-year-old sticking out his tongue, mocking the man 31 years his senior for his lack of power.
Jake Paul emasculated Mike Tyson during the fight. (Getty Images: Sarah Stier)
In a fight that some had already described as elder abuse, it was a galling, reprehensible addition to the list of sporting crimes he had already committed.
Paul, it transpired, even felt sorry for Tyson in the fight, further emasculating the former champ.
“I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt somebody that didn’t need to be hurt,” Paul said at the post-fight press conference.
It was probably a little late for such sentiments.
The main event’s mockery of boxing stood in such a stark contrast to what had come before — a thrilling and controversial undisputed women’s fight between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.
Having already fought a fight-of-the-year contest in 2022 at Madison Square Garden, the pair renewed hostilities with a vigour that left everyone watching breathlessly as they tried to keep up.
A sickening eye injury suffered by Serrano — a gruesome gash that should have led to a premature conclusion — satisfied the blood lust of the 72,000 in attendance, while the all-action slugfest that ensued had the purists purring in satisfaction.
Katie Taylor (left) and Amanda Serrano fought out a thriller. (Getty Images: Sportsfile/Stephen McCarthy)
Taylor, the standard bearer for boxing in Ireland for a generation or more, gained the decision victory despite having a point deducted for leading with the head.
The unsavoury scenes both during the fight and in the post-fight interviews aside — where Serrano’s trainer Jordan Maldonado repeatedly called Taylor a “dirty” fighter and the American commentators howled their indignation at what was, at most, a 50:50 fight that could have gone either way — the fight was everything boxing fans love.
To that end, the sins that Paul commits in pursuit of burnishing his own ego are somewhat absolved by his commitment to getting a fair fee and exposure for the women’s sport.
Amidst such a frenzied atmosphere following both that fight and the WBC welterweight clash that preceded it — a 12-round epic that was called a split decision draw between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos — the Tyson farce was emphasised all the more as being something that was unnecessary and callous in its cruelty.
Tyson may, hopefully, be told that his place is no longer in the ring.
If that doesn’t work, hopefully he will be thwarted by the sanctioning bodies, organisations that exist to protect the fighters from themselves as much as anything else.
But the reality is, where there is money to be made, these appalling spectacles will likely continue to find a way.
And that might be the scariest thing of all.
