For months, Netflix has hyped up a fight between internet villain Jake Paul and boxing legend and ear connoisseur Mike Tyson. People speculated back and forth about who would win, with most people saying Tyson would knock Paul out, and probably in the first few rounds. 

The entire thing had been a spectacle, even well before the fight began. Paul did what Paul does, talks so much trash that he crosses lines in order to get into his opponent's head. He was clearly the villain in this fight, and Paul relishes in being a villain. He, like many showmen, knows that villainy sells. Infamy is sometimes more profitable than fame. 

Moreover, people love to hate Paul and he loves to be hated. Paul is known for challenging old men past their prime, and as Dana White points out, while Paul has become a better boxer than when he began, his habit isn't to challenge, or ask for rematches, against anyone who is capable and around his age. 

Dana White on Jake Paul,

“He is fighting a guy who is almost 60 years old. That says it all. There is nothing else that needs to be said. Him and Mike Tyson are gonna make a sh*t load of money…Jake Paul can fight….Jake Paul just won’t fight anybody.” pic.twitter.com/YnSjFkHyOD

— Robert Griffin III (@RGIII) November 15, 2024

But you have to understand that Paul isn't trying to become the best boxer in the world. His goal is to be one of the best showmen so he can make a ton of money, and to do that, he's utilizing one of the other lessons he learned over the years. 

Nostalgia sells big. 

This brings us to Tyson, a man who you knew about even if you didn't watch boxing. The man is so famous that you know his face, his name, and even his quirky manner of speech, even if you hate the world of boxing. At some point in time in their life, the vast majority of American men above the age of 20 living today have attempted to do a Mike Tyson impression. 

Only one name stands above Tyson's in terms of boxing ability, and that's Muhammad Ali. Luckily, he's not around anymore for Paul to challenge, but I digress. 

Tyson was cast as the sleeping lion, poked by some young fool into awakening, and people couldn't wait to see the lion tear through him for his hubris. And boy, did they tune in to see it. Over 60 million households braved the pixelated, stuttery mess that was the Netflix livestream to see the fight. 

You could feel just how invested everyone was. X was nothing but talk about the fight. Everyone booed Paul as he arrived, and cheered Tyson when he appeared. Tyson even generated a meme with his bare butt, which I'm pretty positive wasn't an accident on Netflix's part. Then Paul came out with his brother, the equally infamous Logan Paul, riding on a custom car down the walkway with all the glitz, glam, and product placement you'd expect out of them. 

Then, the moment everyone waited for came. Tyson emerged. There wasn't a lot of flash to it. He wasn't accompanied by models, or other famous people. He was alone. Despite the music, the walk was almost a somber one, as if there was a quiet dignity to it. An old warrior going out for one last battle when everyone he used to know had fallen behind or passed on. He was the last of his kind. 

The characters couldn't have been better defined here. Then the fight began, and while the first round was fun to watch, the subsequent rounds felt almost gross.

One thing was clear, Paul could never defeat Tyson, because Tyson had already been defeated by age. Paul just got there afterward. With every round, Tyson got more tired, his leg was clearly bothering him, he threw fewer and fewer punches. He was slow to get off his stool. 

As I watched, I began feeling something akin to dirty, like I'd indulged in something I regretted afterward. Watching Tyson quickly go from being aggressive to a man just trying to stand his ground as time showed off its work on him was hard to watch.

After all the trash talk, the infamous slap, and the hype, the two men hugged it out and complimented one another into the microphone. 

I wish that show of respect and love made me feel better about the whole thing, but it didn't. As Dave Portnoy said, they pulled off "one of the great cons of the century."

Credit to Jake Paul + Mike Tyson for pulling off one of the great cons of century. I shoulda put 10 million on Jake. Not cause he's good but cause he fought a senior citizen. I would say everybody involved should be ashamed but I'd take the money it too if I could. #TysonPaul

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 16, 2024

The question is, was it rigged? 

I couldn't tell you officially if it was. There were times when people said Tyson could have easily knocked Paul out, and he didn't take them. 

On Paul's end, I got the impression he knew that if he actually managed to knock out Tyson, then he'd go from being the villain that everyone loved to hate, to just being a villain that everyone wanted to ignore. Knocking out Tyson in his prime would have won him some real accolades, but knocking out Tyson the old man would have made him look pathetic. Being knocked out by Tyson, just as well, would have just made him look like a bad boxer despite the fact that this was Tyson doing it. Paul is in his prime, after all. 

So the only good option was to go all eight rounds, then at the end, take the technical victory, but hand the public victory to Tyson, which is exactly what Paul did. As the last 10-second warning bell rang, Paul raised his gloves and bowed as a sign of respectful worship to Tyson, bringing the drama to an end and giving Paul some redemptive appearance of actually respecting Tyson just like everyone else does. 

Also, he's excited about the future under Trump! He's just like the majority of Americans! He's been one of us the whole time!

The payouts to both fighters were massive. Tyson was reportedly paid $20 million and Paul's pay was $40 million, so whether this was sports or something akin to the drama of pro wrestling disguised as a serious match, the pay was still the same. 

But it was rigged against you. It was cleverly disguised nostalgia bait, something we're sick of, and we remembered we were sick of the moment Tyson began showing his age. I think a lot of people identified with this "one last ride" moment, personally seeing themselves as the brave warrior coming out to show the world they are still capable. That they aren't done yet. 

The lesson is that we're all still very capable of being marketed to in ways that slip past our defenses. Things we're sick of or know we wouldn't normally touch can be slipped past our defenses with the right amount of tweaking and storytelling. People felt dirty or screwed over after watching the fight because the realization finally kicked in that they got swindled. Even if it wasn't rigged at all, and this was an honest fight, it was a fight that shouldn't have happened, yet we were all hyped for it because the marketing worked on us. 

We expected honor and glory like the days of old... and we got something a little tasteless and not nearly as satisfying, but that's probably par for the course. That's what nostalgia bait does at the end of the day. It's you remembering something from your past, not experiencing something new. You ate that food a long time ago. You can't get full just remembering the taste. 

This was a case of marketers trying to get you to relive what you see as a better time, but you can't relive those times. Those times are gone... but the great news is that there are some fantastic times ahead of us, and I don't think I need to market that idea to you. We don't need to look back anymore. 

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