Jake Paul has admitted he didn’t want to knock Mike Tyson out cold, claiming he “didn’t want to hurt” the 58-year-old more than necessary.
It’s finally all said and done, Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson is now behind us. While Paul promised fireworks, yelling Tyson “must die” during the weigh-ins, the actual fight itself was a relatively dull affair.
Paul, 27, outstruck Iron Mike through eight two-minute rounds to earn himself a unanimous victory on the judges scorecards. Though much like with every Paul fight, conspiracy theorists were out in full force, convinced the bout was scripted one way or another.
While any intelligent human knows that’s obviously not the case, Paul has admitted he was pulling his punches somewhat as the fight dragged on. With each passing round, Tyson showed his age more and more, and for Paul, he saw a living legend across from him that he didn’t want to brutally hurt.
Jake Paul admits to carrying Mike Tyson in the middle rounds once he realizes that Tyson was exhausted. “I didn’t want to hurt someone that wasn’t able to do much.” pic.twitter.com/f783jSx4XI
— Andreas Hale (@AndreasHale) November 16, 2024
“At any point did you start to take your foot off the gas because you noticed he was tiring out?” Andreas Hale of ESPN asked during the post-fight press conference.
“Yeah, definitely,” Paul admitted without hesitation. “I wanted to give the fans a show. I didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”
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While Tyson remained somewhat flat-footed, the 58-year-old unable to match the 27-year-old’s speed in the ring, Paul felt he couldn’t go all out to “make it exciting” for the fans.
“I tried to give the best fight I possibly could, but when someone’s just surviving in the ring, it’s hard to make it exciting,” he said. “I couldn’t really get him to engage me. But I don’t care what people have to say, it is what it is.
“There was a point where I was like ‘Ok he’s not really engaging back,’ I could just tell his age was showing. I have so much respect for him. That violence, war thing between us, that kind of went away as the rounds went on.”
Another factor that may have caused some hesitation in the ring was later revealed as Paul claimed to have “completely sprained [his] ankle” 22 days prior to the bout. “I was on crutches for 4-5 days,” he said. “I don’t know how it didn’t get leaked. I missed about two weeks of sparring.”