Paul vs. Tyson Retrospective: The American Empire in Decline

Intentionally or not, the fight was a barometer of our political landscape of 2024.

When I came home after a busy day last Friday evening, my parents had the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson boxing match on the television. My parents rarely watch TV together anymore, opting for phone and computer viewing instead, but they somehow learned about the fight and turned the Netflix stream on. They did not know who Jake Paul was, but they were clearly drawn to the odd spectacle of it all–58 year-old retired boxing legend Mike Tyson, somehow agreeing to fight some 27-year old guy they only knew through a Netflix description.

I’d heard about the fight’s existence against my will, via Netflix’s newly-implemented midroll ads. I was shocked that the fight could even happen, as I was familiar with Jake Paul’s Youtube background, reputation, and general grifting behavior. Despite my unwillingness to seek this fight out and watch it myself, the odd spectacle drew me in. Since the fight was already in front of me, I sat on the couch to watch with my parents. I had a morbid curiosity to see what would happen, as many others did. 

I put my phone down as the 2-minute rounds started, more tame than I expected, and more pixelated and choppy than I expected (more about that later on). The commentators reiterated Tyson’s disadvantaged physical state at every opportunity. As the fight went on, I wasn’t sure what outcome would even be most optimal; I felt like I was watching a car wreck, and I had to bear witness to whichever way it ended. 

Getty Images for Netflix © 2024

As the rounds continued, Tyson became noticeably slower, as a 58-year old in a boxing ring would. His quick breaks with his coaches felt like attempts to revive his life, rather than a regroup session. Paul remained energetic and capable. Unsurprisingly, Paul won, and no blood was drawn between the two competitors. His winning speech was unusual. With millions of eyes on him, Paul got his obligatory, respectful comments towards Tyson out of the way, then launched into a populist, dog-whistle-filled monologue: 

“But this fight isn’t about me, man. I want to give thanks to all the real heroes–the US military, the doctors, the nurses in the ER, the cops, the firefighters, the farmers, the truck drivers, all the people who make the world go round. Thank you America. It’s the era of truth, it’s the era of good. There’s a shift in the world and good is rising, the truth is rising. I’m just honored to be a part of America. It feels like we’re back, baby.”

Well, that was weird. The fight left me feeling depressed, but confused. The circumstances were so strange, and yet so many people gave their valuable attention to this event. Online, viewers of the fight echoed this feeling of depression I felt, even speculating that their moves (or lack thereof) were planned. Amongst the reactions to the fight, there was a general sense of “why did this even happen?” A scammer Youtuber-turned-scammer-boxer fighting a retired, 58-year old Mike Tyson, live streamed on Netflix...? Indubitably, something nefarious was afoot.

Netflix

Netflix began testing out live sports event streaming earlier this year, broadcasting golf tournaments. The Paul v Tyson fight was their biggest streaming event yet; it garnered 60 million Netflix household views, and the match filled out the Arlington AT&T Stadium with 70,000 people in attendance. (It was held in Texas because other states would not sanction the fight. CBS reports that “Texas agreed to a fight that was eight rounds instead of 10 or 12, with two-minute rounds instead of three, and heavier gloves designed to lessen the power of punches.”) CBS also reported that “As of early Friday evening, gate receipts at AT&T Stadium brought in $17.8 million in revenue.” People flew in from all states to view the fight. The boxing match brought big sponsors: Meta Quest, Mark Zuckerberg’s current iteration of his Facebook conglomerate, Experian, and Draft Kings. Figures online estimate Paul to have earned $40 million for the fight and Tyson to have earned $20 million. It seemed that the event’s lucrative draw sought to legitimize its own confusing existence and act as a big advertisement for the parties involved. 

So, why Netflix? And why now? Over the past decade, Netflix has successfully disrupted the cabel model of television, and this foray into live sports broadcasting was another step in the Recreating Cable agenda. Netflix has its own litany of problems: it’s overrun with mediocre content made to be “second screen,” its monthly prices are high without the quality to match them, and it recently introduced new tiers of subscriptions, where it removed the standard plan and replaced it with a basic plan with ads. The Paul v Tyson fight exposed Netflix’s lack of quality in a very literal way, with much of the stream pixelating and buffering. Viewers online shared that they received messages from Netflix blaming their internet at home for the poor quality. 

So, Netflix is a borderline bad product, but here we all are, still having Netflix subscriptions. Through the power of convenience, entertainment-viewing monopoly, and subscription legacy, Netflix has stayed in our homes. Their desperation to make more money has become glaringly evident over the past year, during which they cracked down on shared logins in different households, introduced ads, and raised prices. This desperation is not for a current lack of revenue; despite having a loss of subscribers in 2022, Netflix made a large profit in 2023, and they continue to make money after their business changes of 2024. The new live sporting events are another desperate bid to rake in viewers and cash, and what’s a better attention-grabber than streaming the Paul and Tyson fight?

Jake Paul: A Review

Alright, so Netflix is acting in corporate greed, which comes as a surprise to no one. But somehow Jake Paul was able to organize this fight and get Mike Tyson to agree to it. Paul is the co-owner and founder of the company Most Valuable Promotions, which promoted the event in partnership with Netflix. Paul has a long history of being in the internet public square. He started his internet presence on Vine in 2013, then acquired a Disney show role in 2017. He quickly lost this role due to his filmed, publicized pranks and disruptions in his neighborhood. He doubled down on his Youtube career, releasing the infamously viral “It’s Every Day Bro,” which served as an ad for his influencer house at the time, named Team 10. In 2017, Paul created his first company called TeamDom, where he promoted Team 10, as well as his influencer marketing services via the half-assed how-to guide he titled “Edfluencer.” Drew Gooden has documented the blatant level of scamming and greed that Paul exhibited in his training program. Paul abandoned the Edfluencer program after a year. He entered his first boxing match in 2018, fighting the Youtuber Deji Olatunji, known more commonly as KSI’s younger brother. Paul fought his first professional match against another Youtuber in 2020.

From 2020 and onward Paul continued to box, choosing non-boxers to spar against and pad his victory streak. His boxing matches garnered considerable pay-per-view streams. Paul also continued to take on new business ventures. He launched a capital firm called Anti Fund, which invested in a 1) sports gambling firm and 2) a defense technology and military contractor called Anduril Industries (note the military industrial complex participation). That year, Paul also created the boxing talent promotion company called Most Valuable Promotions. This company would go on to sign on boxers like Amanda Serrano and produce Paul’s boxing matches, including the Tyson match. Somehow, some way, Paul’s combined companies and ventures proved to be lucrative. 

Due to his reputation, the average Gen Z social media user is familiar with Jake Paul. He’s known as a greedy, disingenuous, profit-seeking con-man who will pursue attention and money at any cost. If it wasn’t clear–Paul is not a good boxer. He is someone who boxes, pays money to ensure others know he boxes, and rigs matches in his favor.

The Fight

In comes Paul’s invitation to Mike Tyson to come out of 19 years of retirement and reenter the ring. Reportedly, Paul actually proposed the idea of the match to Tyson in 2022. Tyson agreed sometime in early 2024 and the original fight was scheduled for July 20, 2024, but was postponed due to a serious stomach ulcer Tyson had in June. Tyson reported that he was hospitalized for the ulcer and required 8 blood transfusions to treat his condition. He lost 25 pounds from the medical ordeal. He was advised to not train as he was recovering. The fight was then moved to November 15th, 2024.

Despite the unlikeliness of a 58-year old man beating a 27-year old in a boxing match, viewers still rooted for Tyson to beat Paul. This sentiment captured a poetic desire to see a bigot get violently humbled by a legitimate former-great. Who wouldn’t want to see an ego-centric dipshit get punched on television? However, the rallying behind Tyson was not necessarily to see him win—it was the desire to see Paul lose.

The actual fight consisted of pulled punches and Tyson’s lethargy. Paul didn’t attempt any vicious barrage of blows, and Tyson just barely was able to keep up with the fight. To his credit, Tyson ended the fight on his feet and able to interview. Meanwhile, Paul celebrated his win with a MAGA-coded speech and his even weirder brother. People took to social media to point out the political imagery and symbolism of the win–Paul’s victory speech was likened to a Trump rally, and his coach wore a hat that said “Make America Healthy Again.” This slogan is what was (and is) being run by Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, as well as Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign. Robert F. Kennedy is a conspiracy theorist, longtime vaccine denier, and is Trump’s choice to become the next United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

In its capitalist extravaganza of spectacle, distraction, grifting, and political signaling, the Paul v Tyson fight confused viewers and failed to justify its own existence on a surface level. Was the fight entertaining? Not really. Did anyone enjoy the outcome? Not really. The immediate winners of the fight were Paul, with his $40 million and household exposure, Tyson, with his $20 million he might have genuinely needed, and Netflix, with 60 million households giving their attention to the fight despite technical difficulties. The monetary gain of this event is accounted for, but what about the Trump rally-ness of it all? Was it really just a vehicle for more MAGA rhetoric to reach audiences?

Well, no. The Paul/Tyson fight-spectacle affirmed the cultural symbol of white vitality, and in doing so, it encapsulated the current state of American racism, ableism, xenophobia, and fascism in 2024. The underlying product sold by Paul is the promise of a better, whiter, more powerful nation, unimpeded by the Other. Paul’s boxing victory allowed him to a) platform his political ideas and align like-minded viewers with him, b) step into the role of the great white hope, and c) perpetuate the existing American projects of white nationalism, able-bodied supremacy, and the endless consumption of resources by the imperial core.

The Great White Hope: Restoring What Was Lost

Paul was deliberate in his choice to invite Tyson to a fight. Tyson was a former legend of the sport, and challenging him would legitimize Paul’s boxing presence. Perhaps unintentionally, the visuals of the past-prime Tyson in the ring with young, strong Paul conjured the imagery of The Great White Hope. The Great White Hope is a play based on the true story of underdog boxer Jack Johnson, who became the first Black boxer to win the World Heavyweight Championship title in 1908. His boxing prowess, in the era of segregation, was met with animosity from white Americans. This racist animosity culminated in the creation of the “great white hope,” which represented the white boxer who could finally defeat Johnson. The boxer who rose to the occasion was Jim Jeffries, who fought Johnson in 1910 and lost. Johnson eventually lost his title to another white challenger in 1915, and there would not be another black boxer to hold the World Heavyweight Championship until 20 years after.

Through the Paul v Tyson fight, Jake Paul constructed an image of a white, young rookie boxer defeating an old, black boxing legend. The outcome of the fight reflected the visuals of The Great White Hope, painting Paul as the chosen defeater of a black established boxing legend. However, this reflection was bent through a funhouse mirror—no one chose Paul but himself, Paul is not a legitimate boxer, and Tyson is decades past his prime. Moreover, Paul’s company Most Valuable Promotions produced and organized the fight, stacking the deck in his favor multiple times over. Paul was the one who invited Tyson to enter his colosseum, knowing he could defeat Tyson and garner an audience to bear witness. Tyson’s loss confirmed the only outcome of the odd, rigged circumstances: the house always wins.

This highly televised win, along with Paul’s right-wing political statements, speak to modern America fully imbued in a period of “returning to tradition” and going back to “the old ways.” Paul’s victory speech language notably highlights how some unnamed, nation-threatening evil was recently defeated; his boxing win comes a week and a half after Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election. Paul’s speech purports that “There’s a shift in the world and good is rising, the truth is rising...It feels like we’re back, baby.” On the surface, this could mean anything, but given Paul’s Trump endorsement and the blatant MAGA imagery, the “good” Paul alludes to is whiteness. Paul also invokes the traditionalist movement that has grown over the past several years—some examples of this movement are in Nara Smith’s cooking videos, engagement-farmer accounts with Roman statue profile pictures on X, Americana imagery growing in pop culture, and the “I’m just a girl” sentiment that dominated social media last year.

In times of uncertainty and upheaval, people resort to what’s familiar. In this case, as America has navigated a post-Covid¹ world, Americans have lost family members to illness, become disabled by illness, experienced rapid inflation, lost jobs, struggled obtain new jobs, and witnessed the Palestinian genocide through social media. In other words, death, violence, and uncertainty surround us in the imperial core, and people are unhappy. The collective consciousness is not feeling confident, comfortable, or stable, hence the movement to return to tradition. In this case, “tradition” is the overt embrace of heteronormative gender binaries, white supremacy, and eugenics. Rather than finding identity by your own means, it is easier for the isolated and unhappy to fall into the role that the state desires from you, whether it be a organic-cooking housewife/just a girl, or the incel man, who couches insecurity and isolation in virulent hatred of women. Rather than acknowledging that the state has allowed for anybody to become sick and die from Covid, it is easier for folks to create an hierarchal identity divide between the strong (abled) and the weak (disabled). It’s no coincidence that Trump’s 2024 slogan was “Make American Healthy Again.” Trump and his anti-vaccine secretary both have a specific demographic group in mind who should be healthy, and it’s not you or me.

Paul’s fight was a display of the strong, healthy, white male body defeating the infirmed, aged, physically unmatched black body. Meanwhile, Tyson was severely injured by his stomach ulcer months before the fight. He stated that he “almost died” in the process and was advised to not train in order to make a full recovery. Tyson also had visible knee problems during the match, which contributed to his lack of speed and mobility. Moreover, Tyson’s old age naturally made him unfit for extreme physical activity. Thus, Tyson represented the “unhealthy” body that the Great White Hope sought to eliminate and move out of sight. Paul’s win sent the message that the physically vulnerable should not be assisted and helped—they were fair competitors to be extinguished by the strong and vital. In other words, they were expendable.

This treatment of the disabled reflects America’s response in the Covid pandemic. While America initially commenced quarantines and lockdowns, the government grew more lax with regulations throughout 2022, until the CDC eventually changed their recommended quarantine period from 2 weeks to 5 days. This way, Covid would be less of a threat to continuing business as usual, and workers could come back from sick leave sooner. The immunocompromised, the disabled, and the elderly were all considered expendable in the pursuit of business. Capital was more important than saving lives, and the unmitigated spread of Covid was treated like a necessary evil to return to “normal.” Perhaps Covid should have changed everything, and there was no normal we could return to, but that would mean a threat to business and labor as we know it.

America in 2024 is an empire trying to salvage itself. The state reacts to problems after they’re happening, rather than anticipating issues and preparing accordingly. Daily life feels like trying to choose the least shitty option, whether it be expensive groceries at the store, a job you can obtain and tolerate, or even the entertainment that is recommended to you via algorithms and marketing. If we do not use conscious effort every day, we are corralled into mediocre choices. For instance, I’ve found myself reaching for quick, algorithm-suggested entertainment and wondering why my soul felt hollow at the end of each day. The Paul v Tyson fight was another form of hollow entertainment that relied on capturing viewers’ attention for the sake of profit and state propaganda. We are not being entertained by these media spectacles. We are being placated.

Post-Covid, we have not been the same. People have been reminded of their mortality, and the American empire was confronted by its own morality, too. Rather than living to thrive, we are in survival mode. We now navigate a world four years post-pandemic and inhabit a society fractured by its fallout. Individuals seem to be lonelier than ever, and this isolation weakens personal identity and confidence. Who can feel safe to take a risk or explore the unknown when violent world events permeate every social media app, you don’t have a community, and your time is absorbed into a 40-hour work week vortex? This instability and state-sanctioned isolation create a breeding ground for individuals to enter gendered, raced, conservative pipelines. Extremist communities market themselves as a solution to isolation by selling bioessentialist dreams to the insecure and alienated. The communities ask: “remember the prizes that heteropatriachy, white supremacy, and eugenics promised you? All those values the woke left has tried to do away with—you are still within your right to claim them.”

These far-right traditionalist groups present a pre-packaged identity and social belonging that we lack, and in doing so, they utilize fascist rhetoric. They define “us” by degrading “them.” This in-group thinking formed the basis of the American empire, but influential media figures like Jake Paul and Trump wield the rhetoric openly. Gone are the times of liberal political correctness in mainstream media; over the past year, the internet has seen a resurgence of slurs, and memes like “the friend who’s too woke” circulate social media. The American Overton window has shifted even more right with the 2024 election, seeing a conservative, punitive, Zionist Kamala Harris as the Democratic “alternative” to Trump’s ultra-fascist Project 2025. Once again, we are given the illusion of choice. Both options are bad, and at best, one casts a vote with the intention for their opposition to lose, rather than to see the most qualified win. After it’s all over, business continues mostly as usual, as the Earth continues to heat, Americans continue to spend, and our souls continue to hollow out.

***

When I stare at the freeway on my commute, I think about what the land looked like before the ugly expanses of gray concrete. There was no need for freeways to be built as our main method of transportation. There was no need for me to continue scrolling on Tiktok for hours, unsatisfied with the majority of what I saw. There was no need for the Paul v Tyson match to happen. And yet, we participate in these rituals we don’t like, because it feels like there is no other choice. There’s an invisible current pushing all of us, and if you’re exhausted, it’s easier to let yourself be taken by the current. Swimming in the other direction requires additional energy and attention—this is highly difficult in a world spreading your energy thin. Thus, convenience becomes a valuable commodity. This is evident in the mainstream domination of the for-you algorithm models (why even look for things on your own, with your own brain), streaming subscription services offering a library of suggested content (Netflix), and Amazon delivery, which now offers same-day Prime shipping.

Hopefully, at this point, you aren’t too depressed at the state of the world. I feel a grief of what could have been on a daily basis, and yet, I’m deeply tired of the way things are. I’ve been through the placating motions, the quick entertainment, and dopamine overloading that the invisible current pushes me through, but I still feel an itch in my soul for genuine fulfillment. We do not have to accept placation. Our time is valuable, our brains are valuable, and our actions matter. We have the power to at least opt out of data-scraping, attention-wasting, product-pushing for you content. If our attention is so easily wasted now, it’s clear that global capital interests stand to benefit from it. So, give your attention where it matters. Strengthen the atrophied muscle of critical thought in your brain, and reject the content that a machine picked for you. Our time is limited and our energy is meaningful. Let’s not waste it on distraction.

1. I say “post-covid” to refer to the world after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is not to say Covid is over.