Well, that was bad!

So, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing match was broadcast over the weekend on Netflix and, aside from possibly Jake Paul himself, a terrible time was had all around. Throughout the entire eight rounds, Paul essentially danced around Tyson with the former Baddest Man on the Planet and eventually winning by unanimous decision.

After the match, a lot of people went onto social media to state the obvious: this was a bad night for boxing. Even though Jake Paul showed his dominance throughout the match, it wasn’t exactly a rout as he was never able to get a really clean hit in. Tyson looked like a man well past his prime, which was basically the truth. Well, that was when you could actually see the fight as Netflix had trouble actually showing the fight! The Netflix live stream went down multiple times throughout the bout.

Even with that, while I will admit Mike Tyson had a terrible time, I actually think this was a good night, despite all of the technical issues they faced. Let me explain…

First off, I really think Mike Tyson should have never agreed to the fight in the first place. Even if was just an exhibition match (which it wasn’t as it was an officially sanctioned match and will go down in the official record books), facing off against Jake Paul was a bad idea from the start. I remember a lot of fans were gleefully talking about how Mike Tyson will totally destroy Jake Paul and Jake Paul was an idiot for even trying to taunt Tyson during the press conference as it just got the Baddess Man on the Planet angry.

They seemed to have forgotten that Mike Tyson is now nearly sixty years old while Jake Paul wasn’t even in his thirties yet! The huge age difference already made it an uphill climb for Tyson to overcome. There’s also the thing about “ring rust” as Tyson hasn’t been in an boxing match since his fight in 2020 against Roy Jones Jr., another boxing legend who wasn’t exactly in his prime anymore as well, in an exhibition match. Four years is a very long time between boxing matches and, considering his age, four years might as well been an entire decade. There was also the issue how the fight had to be postponed because Mike Tyson was having medical issues, such as an ulcer flare up. Tyson simply wasn’t getting any younger so things like his reflexes, speed and his power were already waning.

There’s also the weird impression that Jake Paul doesn’t belong in the world of “real” boxing. After all, he got his start being a YouTuber and, well, an all-around jerk. Most people didn’t seem to know he has been training to be a boxer for four years now, basically since Mike Tyson’s exhibition bout with the aforementioned Roy Jones Jr! And he’s actually been piling official matches since then. While not exactly championship material, at least, not yet, Jake Paul’s gathered a ton of practical boxing experience, more than enough to take on a man who is now a little too old to be considered a real contender.

However, I can kind of understand why Mike Tyson wanted this fight at the start. I mean, it was initially conceived to just be an exhibition bout and not an official match to be added to their official records. It was just supposed to be more of a publicity fight just for fun. After Mike Tyson retired, he kind of reinvented himself to tone down his Baddest Man on the Planet persona and become a little more lighthearted and fun-loving. So, yeah, I can’t really blame him for taking on the fight.

However, we get to the Netflix side of things and I can see why people were upset. When I streamed the fight, the stream would either buffer or get disconnected multiple times throughout. And that crap didn’t just affect me, who lives in a country with pretty spotting Internet connections on a good day! No, this was happening worldwide, even in the United States, where the fight was happening! Even during the fight, people were already complaining and making fun at how bad Netflix was doing and how crappy the service is!

However, this is where I believe people are wrong because, while I will say Netflix massively screwed up while streaming the fight, this was still a win for them. For one, all of the people who are now complaining about how it was a bad idea for a man of Mike Tyson’s age to face off against a youngster like Jake Paul and how the interruptions were terrible, this does show there were a whole lot of people who were trying to watch this fight in real time! Not people waiting for it to be over so they could stream the entire thing. No, people were eager to see this live and, based on the number of people complaining about it, it’s pretty much proof of how many people actually have a Netflix account!

This is also a good learning moment for Netflix as they’ve never had to stream a live event to this many people before. Sure, they’ve dabbled before with things like Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef and some awards shows. But they’ve never had to broadcast a live stream to this many people before to this many locations. Netflix thought they were ready but they were obviously wasn’t. The number of people trying to watch the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson boxing fight was too much for Netflix’s servers to handle and something had to give. Well, after this, they are now more aware of what to work on in the future, hopefully.

Now, in the long run, this match doesn’t really destroy Mike Tyson’s legacy as he will still be remembered as one of the most feared fighters in the world. He will also be still remembered for some of the awful things he did while he was the most feared fighters in the world. So, this was just a small ding in his legacy in the grand scheme of things. For Netflix, while their reputation may have suffered in the short term because of this, this failure does give them the idea on what they can do better to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

What did you think of the Netflix fight with Jake Paul and Mike Tyson? Let me know in the comments section below!