‘I was in a lot of pain’… Mike Tyson breaks his silence after slapping Jake Paul in heated final face-off
Mike Tyson has finally spoken out about why he slapped Jake Paul in the pair’s final face-off yesterday.
The heavyweight duo will finally fight tonight in front of 75,000 fans at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas in the first boxing match to be broadcast live on Netflix. They went head-to-head for the final time yesterday, and the legendary former champion smacked his 31-years-younger rival.
While it initially seemed that Tyson had attacked unprovoked, new footage has revealed that Paul played a cheeky trick to get a reaction. He stood on his rival’s toe right as they were getting close, leading him to haul off.
Mike Tyson slapped Jake Paul in final weigh-in face-off
After a legitimate commission weigh-in yesterday morning, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson made their way to the Toyota Music Factory for a ceremonial tipping of the scales. Fans and stars including Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones Jr packed out the venue to watch proceedings.
Paul was first to the scales, and came in at a whopping career-heaviest of 227lb, which was just a pound less than ‘Iron Mike’ who followed him in weighing in. As recently as February of last year, Paul was tipping the scales as low as 183lb to face Tommy Fury.
And when the pair came head-to-head, Paul crawled across the stage before rising to get in Tyson’s face. But after stepping on his rival’s toe, Tyson hit him with a lightning quick smack, and they were separated by security shortly after.
Jake Paul claimed ‘iconic’ press conference slap was a ‘pinch me’ moment
Despite what seemed to be a fairly painful slap, Jake Paul didn’t seem to angered by what happened once tensions had calmed down. He did say during his on-stage interview that he would have to kill Tyson, but his tune changed as he took to social media.
“This is a pinch me moment,” he said on X afterwards. “I got slapped by Mike Tyson.” He also compared himself to Chris Rock, who was slapped by Will Smith at last year’s Oscars ceremony in one of the most viral moments of the year.
And his brother Logan Paul later branded the moment iconic, telling fans on social media: “My brother got slapped by Mike Tyson, f***ing iconic… but a grave error.
This fight just became personal for Jake. Tomorrow’s outcome will be utter devastation for Mike; the new face of boxing will be crowned tomorrow; Jake Paul.”
Mike Tyson finally speaks about why he slapped Jake Paul
Following the incident, Tyson was not interested in speaking to host Ariel Helwani on stage at the weigh-in. But he has since spoken out about what happened, noting that he was physically hurt by Paul’s stunt with his toe.
“I was in my socks and he had on shoes,” Tyson told The New York Post just moments after the controversial weigh-in. “He stepped on my toe because he is a f*ing ahole. I wanted to think it happened by accident.
“But now I think it may have happened on purpose. I was in a lot of pain. I had to reciprocate.” And in a later statement, a Tyson spokesperson added: “Jake has been poking the bear the whole time. Mike slapped the s*** out of him.”
