Jake Paul cruises to one-sided decision over Mike Tyson

By SCHUYLER DIXON AP Sports Writer

ARLINGTON, Texas — The boos from a crowd wanting more action were growing again when Jake Paul dropped his gloves before the final bell, and bowed toward 58-year-old Mike Tyson.

Paying homage to one of the biggest names in boxing history didn’t do much for the fans that filled the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys on Friday night.

Paul won an eight-round unanimous decision over Tyson as the hits didn’t match the hype in a fight between the 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer and the former heavyweight champion in his first sanctioned pro bout in almost 20 years.

All the hate from the pre-fight buildup was gone, replaced by boos from bewildered fans hoping for more action in a fight that drew plenty of questions about its legitimacy long before it happened.

The fight wasn’t close on the judge’s cards, with one giving Paul an 80-72 edge and the other two calling it 79-73.

“Let’s give it up for Mike,” Paul said in the ring, not getting much response from a crowd that started filing out before the decision was announced. “He’s the greatest to ever do it. I look up to him. I’m inspired by him.”

Tyson came after Paul immediately after the opening bell and landed a couple of quick punches but didn’t try much else the rest of the way.

Even fewer rounds than the normal 10 or 12 and two-minute rounds instead of three, along with heavier gloves designed to lessen the power of punches, couldn’t do much to generate action.

Paul was more aggressive after the quick burst from Tyson in the opening seconds, but the punching wasn’t very efficient. There were quite a few wild swings and misses.

“I was trying to hurt him a little bit,” said Paul, who improved to 11-1. “I was scared he was going to hurt me. I was trying to hurt him. I did my best. I did my best.”

Tyson mostly sat back and waited for Paul to come to him, with a few exceptions. It was quite the contrast to the co-main event, another slugfest between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano in which Taylor kept her undisputed super lightweight championship with another disputed decision.

Paul said he eased up starting about the third round because he thought Tyson was tired and vulnerable.

“I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt somebody that didn’t need to be hurt,” Paul said.

It was the first sanctioned fight since 2005 for Tyson, who fought Roy Jones in a much more entertaining exhibition in 2020. Paul started fighting a little more than four years ago.

“I didn’t prove nothing to anybody, only to myself,” Tyson said when asked what it meant to complete the fight. “I’m not one of those guys that looks to please the world. I’m just happy with what I can do.”

Tyson’s record is now 50-7 with 44 knockouts.

The fight was originally scheduled for July 20 but had to be postponed when Tyson was treated for a stomach ulcer after falling ill on a flight.

Tyson slapped Paul on the face during the weigh-in a night before the fight, and they traded insults in several of the hype events, before and after the postponement.

The hate was long gone by the end of the anticlimactic fight.

“I have so much respect for him,” Paul said. “That violence, war thing between us, like after he slapped me, I wanted to be aggressive and take him down and knock him out and all that stuff. That kind of went away as the rounds went on.”

The fight set a Texas record for combat sports with a gate of nearly $18 million, according to organizers, and Netflix had problems with the feed in the streaming platform’s first live combat sports event. Netflix has more than 280 million subscribers globally.

“This is the biggest event,” Paul said. “Over 120 million people on Netflix. We crashed the site.”

Among the celebrities in attendance were basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal and former NFL star Rob Gronkowski, along with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, two foes with Tyson’s heyday, greeted him in his locker room before the fight.

Tyson infamously bit Holyfield on the ear in a 1997 bout, and appeared to have one of his gloves in his mouth several times during the Paul bout. He was asked if he had problem with his mouthpiece.

“I have a habit of biting my gloves,” Tyson said. “I have a biting fixation.”

“I’ve heard about that,” the interviewer responded.

STREAMING DELAYS FOR NETFLIX

Netflix’s first attempt at handling a live sports event did not receive a passing grade.

The fight experienced streaming problems according to many viewers on social media. Many viewers took to Twitter/X and Bluesky to express their frustrations with streaming and buffering problems before and during the fight.

According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to the fight.

The bout was scheduled for eight two-minute rounds, as opposed to the normal three minutes and 10 or 12 rounds for most pro fights.

Netflix representatives had no comment via e-mails to The Associated Press on the streaming problems viewers experienced leading up to or during the fight.

The bout was Netflix’s biggest live sports event to date, and an opportunity to make sure it can handle audience demand with the NFL and WWE on the horizon. It streamed globally to Netflix’s 280 million subscribers at no additional cost.

Netflix will broadcast two NFL games on Christmas Day and will begin streaming WWE “Raw” on Jan. 6.

The streaming delays weren’t the only problems Netflix experienced leading up to the fight.

Viewers saw Tyson’s bare butt in only a jockstrap when he walked away at the end of a pre-fight interview in his locker room.

For some reason, Netflix chose to make light of the faux pas.

TAYLOR EDGES SERRANO IN CONTROVERSIAL DECISION

The rematch between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano was as bloody and bruising as the original.

The disputed decision – and the reaction to it – was about the same, too.

Taylor retained her unanimous super lightweight championship in a razor-thin unanimous decision over Serrano in a slugfest remarkably similar to their epic bout in New York two years ago.

Taylor was scored a 95-94 winner by all three judges, drawing boos from the crowd.

Taylor, the 38-year-old from Ireland, remained the undisputed champion and in the super lightweight and lightweight divisions. It was the third victory since the first professional loss for Taylor (24-1, six knockouts).

Serrano, who kept punching despite getting a nasty cut over her left eye in the sixth round, was the crowd favorite much the same way she was in the disputed split decision at Madison Square Garden in 2022.

The cut appeared to come from a head-butt from Taylor, who was penalized a point for head-butting in the sixth round. Serrano said her first-ever cut came in a head-butt from Taylor in the first meeting, and accused Taylor of doing it on purpose.

“I think 100% because she does it in every fight,” Serrano said. “It is what it is. I’m a champion, no matter what.”

Asked about a third meeting, Serrano was interrupted by her trainer, Jordan Maldonado, who made more accusations about head-butting.

“If head-butting is not included and we get a fair referee, one that knows what he’s doing and is going to do what he has to do,” Maldonado said. “It was a lot of head-butting. Amanda Serrano has 50 fights. The first time she ever got cut was the first fight with Katie Taylor.”

Her eyes, cheeks and lips swollen in the post-fight news conference, Taylor shrugged off the allegations of head-butting.

“I really don’t care what’s being said about the fight,” the 2012 Olympic champion said. “I’m 2-0 against Serrano.”

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, after the fight, Serrano showed the stats that had her with a 324-217 advantage in punches landed.

“I landed 107 more punches, she got a point deducted and I lost 95-94,” Serrano wrote while adding the abbreviation of a crude phrase.

In the sold-out slugfest two years ago, they were the first women headlining a combat sports event at the storied venue. The 36-year-old Serrano, a seven-division champion, is 47-3-1 with 31 knockouts.

It might have started a little more slowly than the New York meeting, but things changed when Serrano, who is from Puerto Rico but lives in New York, sustained the nasty cut.

The injury forced the referee to call a timeout in the middle of the sixth round, and frequent closeups the rest of the fight drew gasps from the crowd in the first combat sports telecast from the streaming platform Netflix.

“Every time you get a cut, it bothers you,” Serrano said. “You’ve got blood in your eye. It hurts.”

Serrano never stopped punching, though, and appeared to have Taylor teetering in the final seconds of the bout. Taylor leaned in on Serrano repeatedly, appearing to have trouble keeping herself up on her own. She had already been deducted a point for head-butting in the eighth round.

Taylor was fighting for the first time since avenging her only professional loss by beating Chantelle Cameron for the undisputed super lightweight title in a rematch in her home country a year ago.

The Taylor-Serrano fight in New York was more a celebration of women’s boxing, despite the questions over the result. Serrano was a little more frustrated this time amid the questions about head-butting.

The Tyson-Paul fight didn’t come close to matching the action of Taylor-Serrano.

“I have my opinions about the fight,” Eddie Hearn, Taylor’s promoter, said. “It’s done then. It’s just my opinion. We saw an incredible event that had millions of eyeballs.”

Serrano was in trouble after the sixth round, the ring doctor asking if she could continue as the wound was treated. She said yes, and didn’t show many signs of slowing down.

The pair traded flurries of punches most of the way, especially in the final round while knowing the decision would be close.

BARRIOS RETAINS TITLE VIA DRAW

Mario Barrios retained the WBC welterweight title in a draw with Abel Ramos on the undercard. Barrios was in control early before Ramos dominated the middle rounds. Each recorded a knockdown in the 12-round bout.

It was the first fight for the 29-year-old Barrios since he was appointed the WBC welterweight champ when Terence Crawford started the process of moving up from the 147-pound class.

Barrios, who is 29-2-1, had won the interim WBC title with a unanimous decision over Yordenis Ugás last year. The 33-year-old Ramos is 28-6-3.