The most menacing heavyweight champion of all time, Mike Tyson playfully laughed and tossed soft punches at Jake Paul’s gut during their faceoff, even tickling the YouTuber. This unusual scene at Monday’s news conference introduces a different wrinkle to the upcoming Tyson-Paul bout, featuring a softer 58-year-old version of “Iron Mike.”
“He’s having a hard time taking Jake seriously,” Paulie Malignaggi commented on ProBox TV. “[Tyson’s] been in there with [Evander] Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Michael Spinks, Larry Holmes … he’s probably thinking, ‘I need to intimidate this guy? Whatever.’”
Despite the playful interaction, the Netflix-streamed event at AT&T Stadium outside Dallas on July 20 has high stakes. It features a co-main event between undisputed junior welterweight champion Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, along with bouts between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and former UFC fighter Darren Till, and unbeaten lightweights Ashton Sylve and Floyd Schofield.
However, by staging their news conference during the fight week of the highly anticipated heavyweight bout between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury, the Tyson-Paul promotion missed an opportunity to showcase “a tinge of the old Tyson,” as noted by Malignaggi and fellow analyst Chris Algieri.
“Instead, we got this belly touching and smiling thing going on. It wasn’t a good look.”
Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, who is funding Fury-Usyk, urged Tyson on X to avoid “the script” and knock out Paul. Tyson responded by insisting the fight will not be scripted and that he intends to knock out Paul.
“That doesn’t look real good, either, that they have to convince us this is a real fight. … ‘Trust us,’” Algieri remarked.
Image Credit: X