Photo: Getty Images North America
Pro Football Hall of Famer Michael Irvin called Boxing Hall of Famer and former undisputed world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson loss to social media influencer Jake Paul "a big lie" after viewing it in person.
Irvin, 58, who sat in the second row during the Netflix spectacle at AT&T Stadium, said he heard a rumor that Tyson was prohibited from using his signature uppercut and that both fighters weren't allowed to go all out in the ring while appearing on the It Is What It Is podcast this week.
“That fight was a lie,” Irvin said. “Everybody’s lying … They had no intentions to really strap it on. If you look through that, I didn’t see one patented uppercut by Mike Tyson. What did Mike Tyson win on? Uppercut.
“Then I heard some people talking about they couldn’t put that in the contract. He couldn’t body and then uppercut. Like, how can you put that in a fight contract?
“You got all these people out here, and he couldn’t body him and do that patented uppercut. Mike Tyson is not Mike Tyson anyway, and now you’re taking away Mike Tyson’s best gift, which is that uppercut. Man, that’s a big lie to me. That’s like making me play a game without running a slant route in the deep end or the deep out. You do what you do best. If they take that away, you ain’t that dude anymore, and they took that away.”
Paul, 27, scored 80-72, 79-73, 79-73, over Tyson, 58, whose last official match came in a loss to Kevin McBride in 2005, during the highly-anticipated event at AT&T Stadium. Fans were livid by the fight itself, which many online deemed to be boring and a cash-grab, as well as Netflix's streaming issues throughout the night, with the service trending as many customers experienced buffering issues during the rest of the card, including Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
"Im in the classic torture chamber where I cant tell if my internet keeps going out or whether #Netflix is just constantly buffering and unwatchable for everybody," Portnoy wrote on his X account. "So the reports are in. #Netflix wasnt ready for this. This is unwatchable."
"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," Portnoy added in another post.
Tyson, the youngest boxer to ever win a heavyweight title and one of the most dominant ever in the weight class, went 50-6-2 (44 KO) in 58 career professional fights prior to Friday's loss. Paul has a 10-1 record in 11 professional boxing matches, which included a first-round TKO against Ryan Bourland on March 2.