By Norm Frauenheim –
Outrage is boxing’s oxygen. So, take a deep breath, because there’s plenty of it in the hours since Netflix announced Mike Tyson-versus-Jake Paul.
Give Netflix some credit. It didn’t call it a fight, which of course it is not. Netflix is calling it a boxing event. It’s not exactly that either.
Tyson-Paul has about as much to do with boxing as Boxing Day does in the Commonwealth countries, where people box up food and other leftovers for the poor the day after Christmas.
That’s an act of mercy. But there’s none of that in what Netflix, Tyson and Paul are planning for July 20 at Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ big top in Arlington, Tex.
There’s only money.
They’ll grab what they can and move on, leaving only the usual outrage and absolutely no mercy for the crowd that always buys into these events. It’s happening because there’s a market for it and there always will be.
There are reasonable questions, of course. By now, most of them have already been posted on outrage media.
Will Texas regulators call it an exhibition or sanction it? Will Texas drug-test Tyson, a pot farmer and user, after suspending Keyshawn Davis for a positive test in October?
Then, there’s the age debate. Tyson will be 58, if in fact he doesn’t come up lame in the gym before the scheduled date.
Fifty-eight doesn’t exactly make him a senior citizen. He’s still seven years from qualifying for Medicare, which he might need after he subjects his aging, battered body to a workout regimen. But it’s his choice, his life. His payday.
Besides, the last I checked, two guys, one 81 and the other 77, are running for President. Maybe, the loser can face the winner, although I’m guessing only Netflix wins this one.
At the opposite end of the age scale, there’s the 27-year-old Paul. He wasn’t even around for Tyson’s memorable days as a feared heavyweight.
More than 11 years before Paul was born, Tyson, then 20, became history’s youngest heavyweight champ ever with a second-round stoppage of Trevor Berbick in November 1986.
On the street or in the ring, there’d be something unseemly about a young man against an aging one. If it were real, it’d be really wrong. But it’s really not. It’s a made-for-social-media event.
As a boxing writer and fan, I suppose I could join the outrage mob. But anger at Tyson-Paul would be as phony as calling it a fight. Prizefighting’s historical canvas includes lots of scars, yet not one draws a line between right and wrong.
George Foreman once fought five guys, all in one night. Ali once fought a Japanese wrestler to a draw in Tokyo.
Truth is, it happens throughout sports.
Jesse Owens once raced a horse. In the early 1970s, Evel Knievel rode his motorcycle in a jump over an Idaho Canyon, appropriately named Snake River. Bob Arum helped promote that one. ABC’s Wide World of Sports didn’t televise it, but it did televise Knievel jumping over 13 London buses before a crowd of 90,000 at Wembley Stadium in 1975.
Just last month, the East scored 211 points in an NBA All-Star Game devoid of anything resembling defense. In terms of competitive drama, it was about as real as Tyson-Paul will be.
I didn’t watch that.
I won’t watch Tyson-Paul, either.
