By Norm Frauenheim –
Jake Paul announced another show this week on Don King’s birthday.
Presumably, it was a coincidence. It was also appropriate, or perhaps inappropriate depending on the perspective.
Put it this way: Not even King, 94 on Wednesday, would have been allowed to put a lightweight in against a guy who last fought at cruiserweight.
In effect, that’s what Paul plans, according to reports Wednesday of a done deal for an exhibition between him and Gervonta Davis, who might want to change his nickname from Tank to Tiny for another Netflix spectacle scheduled for mid-November in Atlanta.
Exhibition could mean just about anything these days. It’s a euphemism for anything goes. There are 65 reasons for why it shouldn’t happen. During an era when weight classes still meant something, that’s the difference – 65 pounds of leverage — between Paul, a natural cruiserweight and Davis, a lightweight champion.
Paul was at 199.4 pounds the day before his victory in June over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in a unanimous decision in a 200-pound bout. Davis was at 133.8 for his controversial draw in March with Lamont Roach, who was robbed of a deserved victory in a 135-pound title fight.
Tank-versus-Paul simply would never have happened during King’s tumultuous era. Try to imagine Evander Holyfield, undisputed at cruiserweight in 1988, against Julio Cesar Chavez, the unified lightweight champ at the time.
You can’t.
King always pushed the envelope, crossed several lines of decorum, yet never really trespassed on the craft itself. Then, a 65-pound difference was off the scale, real or imagined. It was simply impossible, beyond comprehension.
But no more. Reasonable these days is defined by whether it can make money. Paul-Tank can, so it’ll happen no matter what kind of risk the massive weight difference creates.
Paul was a 227.2-pound heavyweight for a sad victory over Mike Tyson in a bout that Texas allowed, despite news that Tyson, now 59, had suffered an ulcer in May. His condition forced a postponement from July to November.
Still, Tyson’s performance was full of signs that the ulcer had impacted him physically and perhaps psychologically. He was hesitant at every turn and in every moment. It was hard to watch.
Yet, the fight went on, made possible by a Texas commission represented by Governor Greg Abbott. Gov. Gerry Mandering was there, at ringside, applauding a bout with re-written rules, including two-minute rounds instead of the traditional three. It was a sanctioned exhibition, as in anything goes.
In terms of money, it worked. The live gate at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX, was announced at 72,300. The average ticket price was $302. Texas regulators did the math and smiled. Netflix reported an audience of 60-million households.
Those are numbers that add up to an encore, including Paul, the promoter, against Tank, an agile pound-for-pound contender when he’s ready and willing to do more than just collect a paycheck. He’s erratic in and out of the ring.
What’s clear, however, is that a lot of viewers still follow. Tank continues to be one of boxing’s best draws.
What’s unclear, however, is exactly how Georgia will supervise. Rewritten, Texas-like rules? Shorter rounds? A ladder for Tank?
Everything is up for negotiation, including weights and the other fundamentals that have long defined the ring craft.
The key in so much of this is Paul. Within the ropes, he’s a fighter who says he wants to win a cruiserweight belt. Safe to say, somebody is going to give him that opportunity. He’s already ranked by one acronym.
Above all, he also has the best promoter of the day: Himself. He’ll say anything, do almost anything. He’s King-like in that way.
The difference is that King didn’t answer any opening bells, at least sanctioned ones. Paul answers all of them at multiple weights and does so with a successful promoter’s clout and money. He’s created his own audience, a so-called influencer with some unprecedented punch throughout social-media.
If the Boxing Writers Association of America had an annual award – say, the Don King Promoter of the Year, Paul would have already won it repeatedly.
Is that a good thing? Is he an evolution from King’s contentious reign, often marked by noisy feuds with Bob Arum?
Social-media, Paul’s home turf, has erupted with condemnation at his plan to fight Tank. The angry posts read like last rites. Boxing-is-dead, of course, is a lyric to a very old dirge. We’ve heard it. And we’re hearing it again.
Weights apparently don’t matter much anymore, but there’s still a lot on a scale that this time might provide an answer to whether it’s a game forever changing or forever gone.
