Jake Paul refrained from aggressively pursuing a knockout against Mike Tyson during their fight, despite pre-fight tensions, out of respect for the boxing legend and due to his own injury challenges.
Turns out, Jake Paul didn’t really want to hurt Mike Tyson after all.
Despite all the pre-fight trash talk and a weigh-in altercation where Tyson slapped Paul, the 27-year-old influencer-turned-boxer wasn’t out to harm a legend. Sure, he wanted to finish the fight. But as the rounds progressed, he noticed Tyson was in survival mode. And Paul just couldn’t bring himself to go for the knockout.
“Yeah, definitely [took my foot off the gas],” Paul admitted at the post-fight presser. “I wanted to give fans a show but didn’t want to hurt someone who didn’t need it.”
Tyson started aggressively, but his pace dropped significantly after a couple of rounds. He seemed to favor his knee, wrapped in a brace throughout the bout.
By rounds seven and eight, Paul was still fresh enough to inflict damage. Yet he hesitated, not wanting to create an image of taking down someone he respected so much.
“[I carried him] a little bit,” Paul confessed. “There was a moment I realized he wasn’t engaging back. Maybe tired? His age showed a bit.”
“I respect him immensely,” Paul continued. “After he slapped me, I wanted aggression—to take him down, knock him out. But that faded as rounds went on.”
Paul also owned up to some of the fight’s lackluster moments. He revealed suffering an injury weeks before his scheduled matchup with Tyson.
He had sprained his ankle and torn a ligament during training camp, leaving him on crutches for days.
“It made everything mentally tougher,” Paul explained. “Going into the ring with a taped-up sprained ankle wasn’t easy. Missed two weeks of sparring—only sparred once or twice before this fight. That’s why my cardio felt off tonight.”
While viewership numbers aren’t out yet, Paul expects big returns once final figures are in, marking his fight with Tyson as a massive success.
He knows everyone will have opinions about the fight. But without a willing dance partner, there’s only so much one can do.
“I tried giving the best fight possible,” Paul said. “When someone’s just surviving, it’s hard to make it exciting. Couldn’t get him to engage or slip shots and do something cool.”
“I don’t care what people say,” he shrugged. “They’ll always have something to say—it is what it is.”