Jake Paul and Mike Tyson are just a day away from one of the biggest and most controversial fights in boxing in years, as they prepare to square off on Netflix.
And ahead of their officially-sanctioned, professional bout, the Americans shared a stage at Toyota Music Factory in Dallas on Wednesday (13 November), with Paul making $1m bets and retired boxing champion Tony Bellew crashing proceedings.
Bellew was in the crowd wearing a T-shirt showing the logo of betting site Paddy Power, and he was standing alongside an older man in a boxing robe and gloves. Bellew also had a microphone, with which he spoke over a journalist who was asking a question inside Toyota Music Factory.
Bellew’s words were difficult to hear, but he appeared to call Paul a “clown”, while host Ariel Helwani tried to drown out the 41-year-old, comparing Bellew’s microphone to a “Fisher Price” toy.
Later, Paul lost his cool at the undercard boxers who predicted he will lose to Tyson, making $1m bets with several of them. Next up, tonight, is the weigh-in. Re-live the press conference below.
Paul vs Tyson press conference LIVE
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Jake Paul and Mike Tyson spoke at a press conference before Friday’s boxing match
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The fighters will have the official weigh-in on Thursday evening (midnight UK time, 6pm local)
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Paul bet several undercard boxers $1m after they predicted he’ll lose to Tyson
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Former champion Tony Bellew crashed event with his own microphone – and an old man
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YouTuber Paul, 27, and heavyweight icon Tyson, 58, will fight at AT&T Stadium in Texas
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Bout is scheduled for eight two-minute rounds and is an officially-sanctioned, pro fight
Tyson ignores Paul’s jibes as fight nears
16:33 , Lawrence Ostlere
Quizzed on what a loss would do to him, ‘Iron Mike’ showed a flicker of his old self.
“I’m not going to lose,” Tyson snapped back. “I am not going to lose. Did you hear what I said?”
Given the considerable age gap between the fighters, Paul, 27, has been installed as the favourite.
But Tyson said: “Thank you. Hey, I’m fine with everything, I’m fine with everything. I am just interested in this fight here. I am not talking about fighting anybody, only Jake.”
Tyson ignores Paul’s jibes as fight nears
15:47 , Lawrence Ostlere
“Are you talking to me? Yes I am back. I am just happy to be here. I love you too,” Tyson told a press conference after a delayed walk-in.
“I’m just ready to fight. I’ve said everything I had to say, there’s nothing else to say. I’m just looking forward to fighting.”
This fight, which was pushed back from July, will count on Tyson’s professional record, but will only consist of eight two-minute rounds and 14oz gloves will be used rather than the traditional 10oz.
Asked for a response to people who say this is not a professional fight, Tyson replied: “Well, erm. The people (here) speak for itself. I don’t have to answer.”
Tyson ignores Paul’s jibes as fight nears
14:51 , Lawrence Ostlere
A weary-looking Mike Tyson uttered only 135 words during a bizarre press conference before Friday’s fight with Jake Paul, but insisted he was ready for the YouTuber-turned-boxer.
Former world heavyweight champion Tyson (50-6, 44KOs) will step back into the ring for a first professional bout in 19 years at AT&T Stadium in a fight which will be streamed on Netflix.
Tyson took part in an exhibition with Roy Jones Jr in 2020, but will be up against an opponent 31 years his junior on Friday and appeared disengaged during Wednesday’s press conference in Texas.
Host Ariel Helwani attempted to broach a number of topics with Tyson and put questions to media inside the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory, but the 58-year-old was not ready to bite.
Tyson stays quiet in tense press conference
13:55 , Lawrence Ostlere
Mike Tyson wasn’t in the mood for talking in the final news conference before the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion faces YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul.
Tyson had terse answers for all the questions Wednesday night, two nights before the fight against Paul, who is 31 years younger, at the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
“I’ve said everything I had to say,” Tyson said in one of several attempts to get him to say more. “I’m just looking forward to fighting.”
“It’s cute,” Paul said of the terse Tyson. “I fear no man, so I want him to be that old savage Mike.”
Paul couldn’t even get Tyson to respond by wearing what the 27-year-old said was a “diamond-spiked ear cover.” It was Paul’s jab at Tyson over the Hall of Famer infamously biting the ear of Evander Holyfield in a 1997 fight.
Tyson did get briefly riled up when somebody asked twice what he would do if he lost. His last sanctioned bout was in 2005. Tyson fought Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition four years ago.
“I am not going to lose,” Tyson said, his voice rising the second time it was asked. “Did you hear what I said?”
Jake Paul-Mike Tyson expected to drive record betting
12:58 , Lawrence Ostlere
Paul is betting on himself to beat boxing legend Tyson when the pair meet in the ring in Texas on Friday in what the social media star turned prizefighter predicts will be a slugfest. The 27-year-old Paul, who is more than three decades Tyson’s junior, said he hoped for a vintage performance from “Iron Mike,” who will be fighting in his first professional bout since 2005.
Paul and Tyson’s made-for-Netflix fight has oddsmakers anticipating record wagering for a boxing match. “We expect the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight to be the most bet on boxing match in BetMGM history,” senior trader Alex Rella said.
Mike Tyson insists he doesn’t care about his boxing legacy
12:01 , Lawrence Ostlere
“I tried this spiritual medicine called the toad,” Tyson said. “You see a toad, you bust its puss, you put it on like a mirror, and it gets hard. You rub it down until it become fine sand, and then you smoke it. Then you meet God. And this is what God told me to do.”
Fans whose parents were barely out of their teens the last time he laced on a pair of boxing gloves will form the majority of the expected multi-million TV audience, and it says it all that Paul – who was born five months before his ‘Bite Fight’ loss to Evander Holyfield in 1997, should have selected him as the ultimate reality TV foe.
“You’ve got a YouTuber that has 70million fans,” Tyson added. “No champion has that many fans. And I’m the greatest fighter since the beginning of life, so what does that make?
“That makes an explosion of excitement. And that’s what life is about – making the biggest impact before you die.”
Mike Tyson insists he doesn’t care about his boxing legacy
11:05 , Lawrence Ostlere
From the day he first emerged from the slums of Brownsville to leave Trevor Berbick devoid his senses and become the youngest world heavyweight champion in history at the age of 20 in 1986, Tyson has enjoyed and endured incalculable quarter-hours in the spotlight.
Friday’s bout, which will be contested over eight two-minutes rounds and using 14oz rather than the usual 10oz gloves, is merely the latest chapter, and another reminder of how Tyson has endured against the odds to reach a place of relative calm in late middle-age.
Since scraping himself up off the canvas against McBride, Tyson has proved more willing to court celebrity status, turning his best-selling autobiography, Undisputed Truth, into a one-man stage show, and making cameo appearances as a pantomime version of himself in professional wrestling shows.
These days Tyson, who once seemed hell-bent on self-destruction, languishing in jail for three years following a rape conviction, and filing for bankruptcy after blowing his estimated $400m of ring earnings, claims to have found spiritual enlightenment by smoking toad venom.
Mike Tyson insists he doesn’t care about his boxing legacy
10:13 , Lawrence Ostlere
“What do I care about my legacy?” Tyson said in a wide-ranging chat with Interview Magazine this week. “I never knew what a legacy was and people started throwing that word around so loosely. A legacy sounds like ego to me. I’m going to be dead soon. Who cares what somebody is going to think about me when I’m dead?”
Given the nature of Friday’s upcoming spectacle, it is perhaps telling that Tyson should choose to speak so fulsomely to a magazine founded in 1969 by Andy Warhol, who supposedly once opined that “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes”.
Jake Paul trolls Mike Tyson with $100,000 ear cover after infamous bite
09:48 , Jack Rathborn
Jake Paul has trolled Mike Tyson by wearing a $100,000 ear cover in reference to the former heavyweight world champion’s infamous history with biting opponents.
Reports suggest the item from Vobara is worth six figures, with Paul acquiring it ahead of Friday’s bout on Netflix.
Paul made reference to protecting his ear in a swipe related to Tyson and his notorious move to chew down on rival Evander Holyfield’s ear in their 1997 heavyweight rematch.
Mike Tyson insists he doesn’t care about his boxing legacy
09:17 , Lawrence Ostlere
Mike Tyson’s once-ferocious fighting career was already helter-skeltering towards its feeble conclusion when the video-sharing platform YouTube first flickered into life in February 2005.
Four months later, the so-called ‘Baddest Man on the Planet’, who had cut a swathe through the world’s best heavyweights towards the end of the 1980s, was crumpling in the corner under the less than concussive fists of Irishman Kevin McBride in Washington DC.
Tyson’s pitiful professional conclusion, which followed innumerable controversies and scandals that dogged his career both in and out of the ring, served to soften the memory of the impact of those crushing early wins, and question his hard-won reputation as one of the most brutal and unforgiving world champions of all time.
So it is hardly surprising that Tyson professes himself entirely unconcerned by criticism of his decision to end his 19-year hiatus from the ring and return at the age of 58 to face the YouTuber Jake Paul in Arlington, Texas on…
