Inside the Ropes: Love or loathe him, Tyson tussle is another Paul masterstroke

Each week, Steve Wellings — a man with over 20 years' experience covering boxing for various publications and current online editor of Boxing News — will be drilling down on some of the boxing world's biggest topics via our new column, Inside the Ropes.

On Friday, November 15, in Texas, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson will throw down for eight rounds (or less) of alleged boxing action. Two minutes per session, with 14-ounce gloves, knockouts are deemed accepted.

This is quite a remarkable turn of events, not least because, when the bout was first proposed, Tyson suffered a medical incident on a plane so severe that it was postponed and almost cancelled altogether. 

Now, a near-60-year-old man who has drifted in and out of shape since his retirement and indulges in smoking copious amounts of weed during his spare time gets another shot at redemption.

When the original July 20 date was pencilled in, a number of respectable boxing commentators stepped forward to decry it as a mismatch.

With images of peak Tyson obliterating Michael Spinks or sending Trevor Berbick gambolling across the canvas still fresh in their minds, hands rubbed together in anticipation, ready for the YouTube upstart to find himself on the receiving end of a combination forged in the late 1980s. 

What was not factored into this thinking were the stone-cold facts.

Mike Tyson is now 58 years old. The visuals were terrible the last time we saw him in a proper professional boxing match. Tyson mauled, brawled, bit his opponent’s nipple and lay slumped against the ropes in a lasting photographic summation of the bloated mess his career had become. 

On that summer’s night in 2005, Tyson retired on his stool to avoid any further punishment from Kevin McBride, an honest, gentle giant who could fight but whom Tyson would’ve chewed up and spat out in his prime. In one round, most likely. Tyson bowed out, claiming he didn’t have the guts to compete anymore and didn’t want to disrespect the sport he loved.

Almost 20 years after that version exited the scene, there is zero chance ‘Iron’ Mike is now any better. It’s been two decades and, yes, he will be even worse. The explosive pad work videos may try to tell us otherwise. A late 2020 exhibition draw with another badly faded legend, Roy Jones Jr, told us nothing we didn’t already know.

Tomorrow night, there’s a strong possibility Tyson will look great when rushing out the blocks for round one, just like he did when facing generational rival Lennox Lewis in 2002. However, Tyson will quickly tire, like he did that night in Memphis. 

He’ll hold and grasp. Jake Paul will use his size, his youth, his jab and his moderate athletic ability to hug and roll with the one-time “Baddest Man on the Planet” en route to snatching the name and reputation of an icon. Paul’s fans will no doubt lap up this bleak display.

For all of his faults, dubious background and outlandish social media-fuelled antics, Paul is actually a decent athlete with a wrestling background who has undoubtedly improved since his official 2020 debut. He came into boxing to make a fortune while giving it a proper go. 

He’s trained with legitimate coaches, sparred with good fighters, and treated the sport respectfully. The boxers on his undercard get opportunities and are paid well by his MVP organisation, which means he is not a total stain on the sport, as some suggest.

While fights with Canelo are delusional hype, Paul has elevated himself to a level above the YouTube comedy acts that litter DAZN’s Misfits cards, or even his brother, Logan, and his rival, KSI, two pioneers of the initial craze of celebrity pugilism. If positioned right, Paul could even win a vacant title.

Jake sits in a space of boxing cosplay — a faux yet popular version of the noble art. But by tapping into the good old-fashioned notion of “let’s have a fight to settle our beef, mate,” the boxing ring has allowed him to create a unique series of dramas that have led us to Friday night.

The AT&T Stadium in Texas and 60,000 people are expected to descend upon an event televised on Netflix, the world-renowned streaming giant. 

Even though Paul has trained hard throughout his four-year career and applied the correct amount of dedication and graft to compliment his proficiency to promote even the direst of dust-ups, the fact that he is getting these (mostly self-crafted) opportunities still rankles.

The occasional head-shaking tweet from a blood, sweat and tears, 14-1 pro, out of the council estates, who has slogged his way to a certain level, selling tickets to friends and family, working a second job to make ends meet, shows that boxing, like life, is unfair. 

Paul has circumvented this world and done things his own way. It’s worked. Even after he lost to Tommy Fury in early 2023 and interest from the top networks waned, he kept on churning.

Dragging semi-competent brawlers from different non-boxing disciplines maintained an air of fighting credibility, even if most were half useless. The rebuild has now come to this: a date with destiny, aka Mike Tyson, seven years off a pension. He’ll not need one if the eye-watering purses are to be believed.

And it’s just that, eyeballs, watery or otherwise, that they all want. It doesn’t matter whether you love Paul or hate him. They've enclosed you in the algorithmic content trap as long as you feel something.

People tune in to see him win, lose, or just to witness the pageantry of it all. Very similar to the peak and pomp of Mike Tyson, the man who stands in front of him on Friday evening, don’t you think?

Betting corner — Ramirez vs Billam-Smith could see late stoppage

Just a few hours after Tyson and Paul face off in Texas, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh provides some good old-fashioned “proppa boxing” on Saturday in Riyadh’s Latino Night.

The headline act sees a cruiserweight unification between WBA ‘Super’ champion Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez and Britain’s WBO champ Chris Billam-Smith. The winner will have two belts but still might not be the best cruiser in the world, as IBF holder Jai Opetaia is pretty special.

Billam-Smith is an honest grafter with a nice chance at 11/5 of grabbing the win. Chris does have a tendency to ship a lot of clean punches and should the accumulation of Ramirez’s sharp combinations take their toll, a late Zurdo stoppage at 20/1 (round 10), 22/1 (round 11) or 25/1 (round 12) could edge into play.

Ramirez, however, has been known to switch off at times in past fights and is small at the weight, so CBS rounds 7-12 at 14/1 is interesting for me.

* All odds correct on Oddschecker as of 13/11/2024