Jake Paul responds to claims Mike Tyson pulled his punches in “rigged” fight
Esther Lin/ Most Valuable Promotions Influencer-turned-boxer Jake Paul slammed claims that his bout against Mike Tyson was “rigged” after defeating the 58-year-old in Netflix’s first-ever live streamed combat sports event.
Jake Paul emerged victorious by unanimous decision in his long-awaited boxing match against ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, but not everyone is convinced that the fight was legitimate.
Across the internet, fans pointed to several moments throughout the fight where it appeared that Tyson was holding back, especially after knocking Paul back with some powerful shots.
Former professional boxer Carl Froch added to the speculation before the fight even happened, alleging that the contract banned Tyson from KOing Jake.
A few days after the match, ‘The Problem Child’ appeared on his brother Logan’s podcast to discuss the record-breaking Netflix battle and had some choice words for those who called the match scripted.
“Some people were disappointed in Mike’s performance. They thought Mike would give more,” Logan said. “You see those videos of him going crazy hard on those pads.”
“People are like, ‘Oh, it’s rigged because look at him on the pads, but he didn’t do this in the fight.’ Because someone is f**king punching back, you dumb f**ks,” Jake shot back, mocking his haters. “You don’t realize my power, and my speed, and my agility, and my footwork to get out of the way of those punches.”
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“All of a sudden he’s throwing at air. He can’t land those punches on me,” Jake added, but admitted that Tyson was difficult to connect with, as well. “He was hard to hit. He was elusive. I was missing a lot of punches. I don’t know how he gets off to the side like that.”
However, according to Paul, the punches that Tyson did manage to land didn’t hurt, revealing that he wasn’t phased one bit.
“Didn’t feel a thing, to be honest,” Jake claimed. “It didn’t hurt. He didn’t really land anything.”
For his part, Tyson revealed he almost died in the months before the match and had eight blood transfusions, but decided to fight anyway and ended up going the distance.
Although Jake’s next opponent isn’t lined up just yet, he leaked an offer from a current world champion, ‘Dynamite’ Daniel Dubois, to give him a title fight – something Paul is taking very seriously.