Tyson v. Jake Paul v. Nostalgia

Lots of people called Friday night’s Tyson v. Jake Paul boxing match a disaster. A sham. A scam. A debacle. They’re yelling it was fixed and that it was a complete waste of time.

I loved every minute of it. I loved the hype leading up to it. I loved the undercards. I loved the freezing Netflix (OK, I actually didn’t like that). I loved it all. It reminded me of everything we all used to love and hate about boxing.

It reminded me of my Grandpa.  It created a reunion on my phone on Friday night. More on these in a minute.

How Big Was It?

Netflix says, when the fight started, as many as 64-million Netflix accounts were LIVE-streaming the fight which equates to about 100-million total viewers when you factor in people gathered together watching in living rooms and bars. That seems low. Did anyone watch this thing alone? I’ll bet that number is closer to 150-million. Other than the most recent Super Bowl, which boasted the highest ever audience of around 120-million, this is as close to a M.A.S.H. finale, The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Season 1 of American Idol, or General Hospital “Luke & Laura Wedding” episode as we can get in modern times.

Our pop culture doesn’t have the water-cooler moments like it used to. Whether you loved it or hated it, Tyson brought all the hype he once commanded and for me, it was magical.  It made me think of my Grandpa. 

I’m from Gen X.  For me, the two biggest sports stars from my generation are (a) Michael Jordan and (b) Mike Tyson. End of list. Mike Tyson was so big and such a draw, some of his Pay Per View fights were purchased in more than 150-million homes. He was a spectacle. And his metoric rise and fall happened in the blink of an eye. My generation watched every minute of it. In short…

• March 1985:  Mike Tyson turned pro (I was 11 years old – 6th Grade)
• November 1986:  Tyson wins the World Boxing Council Title
• March 1987:  Tyson wins the World Boxing Association Title
• August  1987:  Tyson wins the International Boxing Federation Title and became the first heavyweight to own all three major belts – WBA, WBC, and IBF – at the same time (I was 14 years old – starting 9th Grade)
• September 1987:  Nintendo released “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out” video game (still in 9th Grade)
• June 1988:  Tyson knocks out Michael Spink and this is considered the pinnacle moment of his career
• February 1990:  Tyson loses to Buster Douglass …Tyson’s first-ever loss in the ring (16 / Junior)
• February 1992:  Tyson goes to jail (18, college Sophomore)
• February 1995:  Tyson gets out of jail

I added my ages and grades above to give you perspective on why Mike Tyson means so much to me. Anything that happens to a person in their middle school and high-school years will always seem like the biggest and most important thing to that person. I had a subscription to Sports Illustrated. He was on all the covers (it seemed like it).

Tyson and the boxing were never the same after that, even though Tyson made plenty of headlines and drew huge crowds and Pay Per View numbers, the late ’90s weren’t the same as those first 5 years when it seemed like he was fighting every few months and he was all everyone was talking about. 

My Grandpa

Here’s how I remember Tyson’s early career.  His fights were on Showtime. Every fight in his early career. Tyson fought often. 3 or 4 times a year. He destroyed his fellow heavyweights. He was 5’10”. Short for a heavyweight. He moved like no other boxer. Quick. Vicious. Angry. His punches were so hard it didn’t look real. He didn’t dance. Didn’t throw long jabs. Didn’t clutch and hold. He punched. Punched hard and knocked people out.

Because it was on Showtime, my Grandpa didn’t have cable. “Pay for TV?!?!?”  If you’re my age, yes, this was a ridiculous concept for Grandpas in the 80s. Sure, maybe that generation would pay for basic cable, but for premium movie channels? Ridiculous. But my Dad, having three 80s kids at home, was all about that cable TV …and that HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and The Movie Channel. We had it all. And on Tyson fight nights, my Grandpa would come over because Grandpa loved boxing. In fact, he was a boxer in his youth. Loved boxing. He taught his grandsons – all four of us – to box. He had gloves. We’d tie ’em on and he’d show us a few things. It really was a “sweet science” when my Grandpa explained it and showed us how to move, why you put your hands in certain positions, what to watch on your opponent, and then he’d tell us stories of his own best fights. 

None of his grandsons became boxers. None of us even really fought all that much (I maybe got in the most fights and, as I often say, I’m 1-8 all time win-loss in fights …so I guess I didn’t really learn anything from Grandpa or I was a bad student …but I did learn to love boxing).

Anyway, on Tyson fight nights, Grandpa would come over to watch. At first, he didn’t like Tyson. He’d say that Tyson really isn’t “boxing” and I feel like my Grandpa had many favorites from the past that he liked better than Tyson. But eventually, even Grandpa came around and thought Tyson may have been perhaps the 2nd or 3rd best he’d ever seen.

My Grandpa, as I remember it, didn’t sit on the couch. I remember he would pull a chair from around the kitchen table (or maybe he would ask for a folding chair from a card table), and he would sit about 10 feet from the TV and watch …and only watch. No talking. No conversation. No distractions. He would sit and watch the fight. In the most uncomfortable chair we had. 

And the difference with most of the Tyson fights is that they were over before they started. Tyson’s legend was the brutality and the fights that didn’t make it past the 1st round. This would make my Grandpa laugh because Tyson just clowned his opponents early on. It was about the fight. But it also wasn’t about the fight. 

It was about the spectacle. It was about spending time with my Grandpa watching him love something and get so excited about something. And his laugh was contagious.  It was about the fights on the undercards. It was a moment in time and something that had never happened before and I don’t know that it will ever happen again.

I can hear him, “did you see that, Donnie?”

It kinda happened again on Friday. Not about the fight. But the spectacle. The spectacle of Mike Tyson.

I thought about my Grandpa all week wondering what he would’ve thought about the spectacle. As the fight time got closer, my cousin Scot sent a group text to me, my brother Dave, and his brother Jim. 

“Boy. I wish Grandpa was here for tonight’s fight. I loved watching the fights with Grandpa.”  -Scot

This set off an hours worth of texting, memories, and laughing at the Mike Tyson spectacle. For a night, as crazy as it sounds, I could almost picture Grandpa sitting in a chair, telling us how this wasn’t “boxing” and telling stories of boxing on the roof of his factory at lunchtime …he’d box anyone for a couple of bucks and he never lost.

Can you imagine that? You. On your lunch break. Telling everyone at work you’ll bare-knuckle box anyone who thinks they can beat you for $20 and then meeting them on the roof. Throwing some punches until you knocked them out. Then back to work.

I wonder if HR would allow that.

The Spectacle

I was on another group text with about 20 college fraternity brothers. Jokes were flying. Everyone was saying what a joke the fight was. What a waste of time it was. Everyone was glad they didn’t shell out any money for it and that it was just part of their Netflix. Over and over guys would text, “I can’t believe I’m wasting my time watching this.”

But we were. And short of being together and laughing until our sides hurt, for about an hour, it was a spectacle we all enjoyed together. 

Togetherness is a lost treasure. We all know this but there’s only the Super Bowl that really is the last must-watch and everyone’s-watching moment.

We need more togetherness.

Lack of togetherness is probably what’s wrong with our Politics and rhetoric. We’re all off hanging out in small groups that look like us and think like us and that’s not a good thing. 

Tyson v. Jake Paul was not good boxing. Netflix was not a good viewing experience. The announcers pre-fight, during the fight, and post-fight were not good, either. 

But being together …100-million or more of us … it was great.