Boxer Jake Paul worked harder than he expected to dispatch Mike Perry Saturday night, but six rounds of battering the Bare Knuckles Fighting Champion fighter was enough to give Paul a TKO victory.
It gave Paul yet another moment in his favorite space — everyone's attention — to return to his original 2024 summer mission: fighting 58-year-old heavyweight Mike Tyson.
“Mike, I love you, but this is my sport now,’’ Paul said in the ring. “You’re a legend. You’re one of the two most famous boxers to ever live. You and Muhammad Ali. It’s an honor to get in the ring with you. I’m so, so honored, you’re a legend. But I’m going to take your throne, brother.”
When is Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson?
Saturday was the original date for the Paul-Tyson showdown, but Tyson's ulcer led doctors to recommend in May that Tyson delay the fight. It's now set for Nov. 15 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to be streamed to Netflix subscribers.
"100% it's happening … Mike Tyson is in training," Paul said after the fight, the Tennessean reported.
Paul, a former child actor who gained international notoriety through his popular YouTube channel, is a polarizing figure in boxing. If he sounded even more confident than usual after the fight, the bombardment of punches he delivered to Perry might have been enough to justify it.
The referee finally called it midway through the sixth after Paul (10-1 with seven KOs) sent Perry stumbling for the third time.
Paul had predicted an early knockout, but didn't anticipate his opponent's grit.
The bell had barely rung at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., when Paul administered a serious blow to Perry, knocking him briefly to the canvas.
Paul repeated the feat in the second round, but Perry, who was giving five pounds and five inches in reach, had the temerity to stand up again.
"Mike Perry you're the toughest son of a b---h I've ever seen in my life," Logan Paul, Jake's brother, said in the ring afterward.
The win did little to quell the steady stream of criticism Paul regularly receives from insiders and Internet experts alike. While his boxing career continues to defy initial expectations, the average age of 11 professional opponents is over 30, with his only loss coming on an eight-round split decision in December 2021 to then-23-year-old Tommy Fury.
MMA loudmouth Conor McGregor couldn't resist a chance to weigh in on the fighter with an expletive-laced post on X that criticized Paul for calling out Tyson after his medical emergency and suggesting he couldn't fight in Las Vegas because of ''athletic commission testing, real testing, real fighting."
