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 estimated 72,000 fans who 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 prefight buildup was gone, replaced by boos from bewildered fans hoping for more from a fight that drew plenty of questions about its legitimacy long beforehand.
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 is 11-1 with seven knockouts. “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, who said an ankle injury limited his sparring sessions in the final weeks of training camp, said he eased up starting in 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 Jr. 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.”
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. His record is now 50-7 with 44 knockouts.
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 on hand 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 from Tyson's heyday, greeted him in his locker room before the fight.
Tyson infamously bit Holyfield on the ear in a 1997 bout, and he 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 interview responded.
According to reports, Paul's payday was US$40 million, compared with US$20 million for Tyson. Paul mentioned his number during a promotional event over the summer. Tyson has a history of legal and financial troubles but had said he didn't take the fight for money.
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 had 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, won the interim WBC title with a unanimous decision over Yordenis Ugás last year. The 33-year-old Ramos is 28-6-3.
