Mike Tyson knockout decision made mid-fight, says ESPN analyst
The decision to take it easy on Mike Tyson and avoid going for the knockout was made by Jake Paul mid-fight, claims ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
Paul admitted after the fight, he took his foot off the gas after understanding just how immobile Tyson was at 58. Smith has since stated there was a conversation between Paul and Tyson as the contest unfolded. “Under no circumstances do I believe it was something that was preordained, but I believe that when Jake Paul was in the ring with Mike Tyson, there was something that said to him, ‘I can’t do this. I’m not going to try to knock him out. He’s Mike Tyson,’” said Smith.
After cruising to an eight-round decision over the heavyweight legend, Paul and his business partner Nakisa Bidarian have been forced to deny reports of an agreement between the boxers.
Claims the fight was rigged or contracted to play out as it did struck a chord with both Paul and Bidarian, who went on the offensive.
“People are like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s rigged because look at him on the pads, but he didn’t do this in the fight,’ because someone is fing punching back you dumb fs,” Paul told Impaulsive.
“People don’t realize my power, and my jab, my speed, my ability, and my footwork to get out of the way of those punches. So then all of a sudden he’s throwing at, literally, air.” Paul then changed his tune from he ‘took his foot off the gas’ to giving Tyson his props.
“He was hard to hit. He was elusive. I was missing a lot of punches,” he explained. “But I don’t know how he gets off to the side like that. I wish he had put up a better fight so that I could’ve risen more and done more, and he was surviving.”
Bidarian appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show to clarify his feelings regarding the rigged narrative.
“The only thing that bothers me is the continued kind of narrative and people saying the fight was rigged,” Bidarian revealed. “How would you have seen the contract, to begin with, that Mike Tyson couldn’t throw an uppercut? – It’s beyond lunacy.”
“This was a regulated professional bout by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. And we were partners with Netflix, the biggest media company in the world, who’s a public company. For anyone to suggest that this was in any way a rigged fight, they’re either dumb or they’re looking for attention.
“I get it. Putting up posts ‘proof it was rigged’ gets you good engagement. A lot of people comment, like, and share. We’re in an attention economy. People say outlandish things to bring awareness to themselves. It’s a sad state of society that people want to spend their time like that,” concluded the MVP co-founder.
Whatever the case may be, Paul vs Tyson didn’t go down well as a spectacle and may have put casual fans off tuning in for another dose of the YouTuber in the future, Paul is currently being linked to a fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in the first half of 2025. The WBA is offering to put a ranking title on the line, with a world title possible later.
