Riddick Bowe’s Marine Corps Misadventure

Published

8 years ago

February 23, 2017

The snide remarks stung then, probably more than any legal punch he received from Evander Holyfield or even the illegal ones below the belt landed by Andrew Golota. Twenty years later, they probably still haunt Riddick Bowe as the Ghost of Christmas Past tortured Ebenezer Scrooge. If there is a difference, it is that Scrooge’s vision was private, and in it he found ultimate redemption. For Bowe, who enjoyed so much success in the ring and so little of it at the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C., those 11 days of chasing a boyhood dream became an exercise in humiliation that has yet to fully cease. Perhaps the taint of it all will endure forever, as will the glory of his epic, three-bout trilogy with Holyfield.

Riddick Bowe wasn’t as good a Marine as Gomer Pyle.

Once he washed out of the Marines, Bowe should have become a UPS driver. That way he’d at least get to wear a uniform.

The Marines are looking for a few good men, and Riddick Bowe ain’t one of them.

There are worse things for a former heavyweight champion – one whose accomplishments include a silver medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, ring earnings estimated at between $65 million and $100 million, depending on whose figures you choose to believe, and his 2015 induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame – to endure than 11 days of discovering that some boyhood dreams are best left in one’s boyhood. Since he voluntarily separated himself from the Corps on Feb. 20, 1997, probably as much to the Marines’ relief as to his, the man known as “Big Daddy” has seen his fortune disappear, his mental and physical health diminish, his family and so-called friends drift away, and his otherwise commendable legacy at least somewhat tarnished.

Many of the sad and bad things that have made Bowe’s rags-to-riches story a cautionary tale of how easy it is for the process to be reversed likely would have happened regardless of whether he raised his right hand and taken the oath of enlistment on Feb. 10, 1997. Was it a just a publicity stunt to call positive attention to Bowe’s then-sputtering boxing career, or to the USMC? By all rights, Bowe, at 29, should never even have been considered as a candidate for Semper Fi-dom; the age limit for joining was 28; at 6-foot-5 and a bit north of 250 pounds, he was more than 20 pounds over the weight cutoff for his height, and he had a wife and five dependent children (the limit is three) at home.

The rationale for the Marines to grant multiple waivers for the celebrity recruit remains unclear, but one thing quickly became obvious: Once in uniform, Private Bowe would have to fulfill his duties in the same prescribed manner as would his younger, poorer and non-famous platoon mates. The Marines do not provide exceptions for wannabes who enter their ranks with a measure of wealth and privilege. For someone like Bowe, who detested training for fights and being told what to do as much as he reveled in being champion of the world and living life on his own pampered terms, the strict regimentation required of a Marine – and, even more so, of a Marine recruit – was virtually guaranteed to result in severe culture shock.

Chuck Wepner, the former heavyweight contender best known for his courageous but doomed challenge of WBC/WBA titlist Muhammad Ali on March 24, 1975, as well as being the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa character, knew better than most what Bowe was getting himself into. Wepner was 17 and a recent high school graduate when he joined the Marines in 1956, serving three years of active duty before mustering out as a corporal.

“The training in boot camp is harder than training for any opponent, ”Wepner, who lasted until the 15^th round before being stopped by Ali,told boxing writer Robert Mladinich in 1997, shortly after Bowe left for Parris Island. “Riddick is a world-class athlete and will be in better shape than most of the recruits. I’m sure he can handle the physical aspect, but the mental aspect is the toughest part. The training is built on humiliation and embarrassment. They break you down so they can build you back up as a Marine. When you are a young kid looking for answers it will make a man out of you. But Riddick is pushing 30, a family man with $100 million in the bank. How is he going to take being called `maggot’ instead of `champ’ all day long?”

Bowe wasn’t the first individual to romanticize the notion of a military life, nor will he be the last. One of 13 children raised by Dorothy Bowe in a drug- and crime-infested housing project in the same gritty Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that spawned Mike Tyson, he spoke of wanting his mother to see him in his “dress blues at attention” and that “the Marines are the elite and I want to be part of itbefore I get too old.”

To those familiar with what Bowe had to overcome to become the splendid boxer he was during his prime, getting to wear those dress blues was not necessary to qualify as a heroic figure. He refused to yield to the lure of gangs and drugs, and took it as a personal responsibility to walk his mother to and from work to protect her from muggers on the lookout for an easy mark. But not all of his family members were so strong, or so fortunate; he lost a sister, killed by drug dealers, and a brother, killed by AIDS contracted from dirty needles.

When the mocking putdowns arose after Bowe quit the Marines after 11 days, only three of which involved actual training, the fortitude and singularity of purpose he previously had exhibited in rising above his circumstances were largely ignored.

“Parris Island has to be Disney World compared with Brownsville,” Michael Katz, then with the New York Daily News, wrote in defending Bowe as so much more than Gomer Lite. “Don’t even try to compare the mortality rates.”

But while Bowe had the courage to say no to drugs and gangs, he could not always suppress his indulgence in other areas. It was not unusual for him to gain 30 to 40 pounds between fights, and his frequently professed devotion to then-wife Judy and his five kids by her (whose images he had tattooed on his back) notwithstanding, he slept around with the reckless abandon of an alley cat. With the assistance of Florida writer John Greenburg, Bowe’s yet-unpublished memoirs, with the working title of Big Daddy Forever, includes a passage in which he speculates he might have impregnatedas many as 25 women. He also said a family friend paid for six abortions.

Little wonder that Bowe’s manager, Rock Newman, had to repeatedly urgelegendary trainer Eddie Futch, who often threatened to quit and sometimes did, to return to the fighter’s exasperated support team. Then again, Bowe himself always seemed to be looking for the exit. Sure, it was a giddy trip, thrice testing himself against a great warrior like Holyfield and pulling down some serious scratch in the process –at one point Bowe owned 26 cars, including four Rolls-Royces, and 10 houses — as well as having a private audience with the Pope in Vatican City and appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman – but at some point a fighter always has to return to the sweat, pain and monotony of the gym. To his credit, Bowe took time from his opulent and hedonistic ways to serve as a spokesman for Somalia famine relief and as a critic of South Africa’s then-official apartheid policy.

“It’s not like Bowe got money and then started hating the training,” Newman told The Washington Post in 2010. “He always hated it. There was rarely a fight – four, six, eight rounds, whatever – where Bowe didn’t want to quit. I mean, Bowe retired preparing for his second fight.”

Eventually, the lurching starts and screeching halts had to take a toll on any such athlete not named Roberto Duran, and that was never more apparent than in Bowe’s pair of disqualification victories against Golota, who was clearly winning on points in each instance until he sabotaged himself by too often targeting “Big Daddy’s” private parts. Although Bowe officially was 40-1 with 32 knockouts after the second of those matchups, he was a career-high and jiggly 252 pounds for the first, on July 11, 1996, the DQ prompting a half-hour riot in Madison Square Garden, a night which continues to live in pugilistic infamy.

Was it by coincidence or design that Bowe, searching for something he’d either lost or never found, revisited his old Marine Corps fantasy after the second referee-dictated nod over the ball-busting Golota, which took place on Dec. 14, 1996, in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall?

Bowe’s enlistment –the signup deal was for three months of boot camp at Parris Island, six weeks of combat training at Camp LeJeune, N.C., then three years of active and five years inactive Reserve duty in the Washington, D.C. area (Bowe was then living in Fort Washington, Md.) –wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary, other than the fact that most Marine enlistees aren’t granted a slew of waivers prior to holding a press conference to reveal their career pivot.

The Marines didn’t promise Bowe a rose garden prior to his affixing his signature on the enlistment documents. They had him visit Parris Island for a look-around, the better to let him know what he would be in for, and rather than to scare him off, what he saw made him even more enthusiastic. He insisted he would go in with his eyes wide open, and nothing could or would dissuade him.

The first eight days at Parris Island involved mostly paperwork and orientation. But it was that first day of actual training – up at 5 a.m., in bed at 9 p.m., with shouting drill instructors always at high, profane decibel levels – that caused Private Bowe to realize that the lifestyle change he had yearned for was not going to be a good fit. Although neither he nor anyone with the Marines familiar with his situation have spoken at length about particulars of his abbreviated stay, the consensus appears to be that multimillionaires accustomed to freedom of movement are not necessarily the best candidates for a $900.90-a-month job which requires absolute adherence to rules, regulations and a strict code of conduct that is the very essence of esprit de corps. Three days into the nitty-gritty part of his training, Bowe, as well as his friend, Deion Jordan, who was accepted with him under the USMC’s “Buddy Program,” became the first recruits to be released from Platoon 1036, C Company, 1^st Recruit Battalion.

“I thought they’d probably give you a hard time for a week or so,” Bowe said. “I didn’t realize that for the 12 weeks you’re in boot camp, somebody was going to be in your face.”

Major Rick Long, then a Marine spokesman at Parris Island, said he had spoken to Bowe about his intention to voluntarily withdraw from training and that he understood, at least to a point, the boxer’s rationale for doing so. “He seemed very genuine in his desire to become a Marine,” Long noted. “However, he decided at this stage of his life that adjusting to the regimented lifestyle was too difficult. It was just a combination of being told when to eat and how fast, when to dress and how fast, and the structured environment. In Marine Corps recruit training, you are constantly supervised and you are on a very rigorous and fast-paced schedule.”

Added Marine Gunnery Sgt. Wiley Tiller: “As an athlete, he had it his way. In the Marines, you don’t have it that way. He would have been totally stripped of anything he ever was. That was probably messing with his manhood. He could have done the physical training, but being told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, that’s not easy for a 29-year-old to handle.”

Newman was of the opinion that family considerations, more so than the Marine way of doing things, likely was the primary reason for Bowe to bail. More than anything, he just might have been homesick.

“For eight years, Riddick’s spent enormous amounts of time away from his wife and family,” Newman reasoned. “The hardest part for Riddick was never in the ring, and it was never the long hours of training. It was always the separation that took place … He hated time away from his family.”

If Newman is correct, what has happened to Bowe in the aftermath of his famously futile flirtation with the Marine Corps devolves from bewildering to tragic. Two months after leaving Parris Island, Bowe abruptly announced his retirement from boxing (he later returned for three winning bouts against C-grade opponents from 2004 to 2008). A year after that, he and Judy separated, he was accused of kidnapping her and the children and forcing them into a car in Charlotte, N.C., and driving them to Maryland. Pleading guilty to a reduced federal charge of interstate domestic violence (for allegedly threatening Judy and the kids with a knife and pepper spray), he was convicted and, following several appeals, sentenced in January 2003 to 18 months in prison. He did the time, plus six months of house arrest, but maintains Judy and the children willingly got into his Lincoln Navigator and that “I never kidnapped anybody.”

Things would go from bad to worse. Bowe filed for bankruptcy in 2005, listing debts in excess of $4 million; his weight, always an issue when he was boxing, swelled to 300 pounds, and during the criminal proceedings against him it was revealed that he underwent neurological tests that indicated he had irreparable frontal lobe damage. Bowe does have slurred speech, but he steadfastly rejects any mental damage stemming from his 45-bout boxing career.

“I feel great,” he told The Post. “Some people tell me I talk funny, but this is the sport I chose and perhaps this is one of the downfalls. It is what it is.”

Bowe, now 49, is remarried – happily, he said, to wife Terri, with whom he has two children — and claims to have exorcised many of the demons that cast dark shadows on his frame of mind before, during and after he did his Marine thing. But, apart from the fact his once-vast fortune is gone, so are those he once welcomed into his inner circle. He no longer has any contact with his onetime Svengali, Newman, or with family members and confidantes who, he said, only wanted to be around him so long as he was paying their way.

“I really don’t have any regrets,” Bowe said in advance of his induction into the IBHOF in June 2015, dismissing some critics’ charges that he deliberately avoided squaring off against Lennox Lewis and Tyson in the pro ranks. “The fact that I fought Evander three times pretty much made up for everything else. I think those other guys (Lewis and Tyson) realize that they couldn’t have done anything better than I did when I fought Holyfield. They couldn’t even have done it as good. (Bowe won two of his three fights with Holyfield, including one by stoppage.)

“If I could change anything, the No. 1 thing is that I wouldn’t have Rock Newman as my manager. I wish I had people around me who had my best interests at heart. I wish I was more into the financial part of the game, that I had paid more attention to what was going on around me. There were meetings and stuff where I needed to be there. I really thought that (Newman) had my back. He didn’t.”

Time has a way of distorting reality to accommodate individual perspective. There are those who maintain that Bowe was unworthy of entering the hallowed halls of the IBHOF, and those who figure his 43-1 career record, with 33 KOs, made him a slam-dunk for election. There also are those who dismiss his 11 days at Parris Island as a cartoonish attempt to regain some form of relevancy, while others credit him for at least taking a few tentative steps toward realization of an inner truth that he long sought, and still lies beyond his grasp.

The real Riddick Bowe remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. He is that rare figure who is who he is, but only to himself. For the rest of us, he is who we choose to think of him as being. In their recruiting brochures the Marines promise that “the change is forever,” but one wonders how much change, or how permanent, can be wrought by 11 days in the broad stratosphere of life.

“I just hope Riddick finds whatever it is he’s looking for,” said Mackie Shilstone, the New Orleans-based conditioning expert who had the perplexing task of helping get Bowe ready for some of his most significant bouts. “It always seemed to me he was looking for some alter ego. I think that’s what happened when he went into the Marines. You know that was a form of escapism. He was always trying to escape from, or to, something.”

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Bernard Fernandez

Philly’s Jesse Hart Continues His Quest plus Thoughts on Tyson-Paul and ‘Boots’ Ennis

Published

8 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Luis A. Cortes III

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Jesse Hart (31-3, 25 KOs) returns to the ring tomorrow night (Friday, Nov. 22) on a Teflon Promotions card at the Liacouras Center on the campus of Temple University. During a recent media workout for the show, which will feature five other local fighters in separate bouts, Hart was adamant that fighting for the second time this year at home will only help in his continuing quest to push towards a second chance at a world championship. “Fighting at home is always great and it just makes sense from a business standpoint since I already have a name in the sport and in the city,” said Hart (pictured with his friend and training partner Joey Dawejko).

Hart’s view of where his career currently resides in relation to the landscape in the light heavyweight division leads you to believe that, at the age of 35, Hart is realistic about how far he can go before his career is over.

“Make good fights, win those fights, fight as much as I can and stay busy, that’s the way the light heavyweight division won’t be able to ignore me,” he says. Aside from two losses back in 2017 and 2018 to current unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez at super middleweight, Hart’s only other defeat was to Joe Smith during Smith’s most successful portion of his career.

When attempts to make fights with (at the time) up-and-coming prospects like Edgar Berlanga and David Benavidez were denied with Hart being viewed as the typical high risk-low reward opponent, it was time to find another way. So, Hart decided to stay local after splitting with Top Rank Promotions post-surgery to repair his longtime right-hand issues and hooked up with Teflon Promotions, an upstart company that is the latest to take on the noble endeavor of trying to return North Broad Street and Atlantic City to boxing prominence.

In essence, it is a calculated move that is potentially a win-win situation for all parties. Continued success for Hart along with some of the titles at light heavyweight eventually being released from Artur Beterbiev’s grasp due to outside politics, and Jesse Hart just may lift up Teflon Promotions into a major player on the regional scene.

Tickets for Friday’s show are available on Ticketmaster platforms.

As we entered November, a glance at the boxing schedule made me wonder if it was possible for the sport to have a memorable month — one that could shine a light forward in boxing’s ongoing quest to regain relevance in today’s sports landscape. Having consecutive weekends with events that could spark interest in the pugilistic artform and its wonderful characters was what I was hoping for, but what we got instead was more evidence that boxing isn’t immune to modern business practices landing a one-two punch on the action both inside and outside of the ring.

Jaron “Boots” Ennis was expected to make a statement in his rematch with Karen Chukhadzian on Nov. 9, a statement to put the elite level champions around his weight class on notice. What we witnessed, however, was more evidence of how current champions in their prime can be hampered by having to navigate a business that functions through the cooperation of independent contractors. Ennis got the job done – he won – but it was a lackluster performance.

It’s time for Ennis to fight the fighters we already thought we would have seen him fight by now and I do believe there is some truth to Ennis rising to the occasion if there was a more noteworthy name across the ring.

—

Some positives emerged from the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul event the following week. Amanda Serrano, Katie Taylor, and women’s boxing are finally getting the public recognition they deserve. Mario Barrios’s draw against the tough Abel Ramos, also on the Netflix broadcast, was an action-packed firefight. So, mainstream America and beyond got to witness actual fights before being subjected to Paul’s latest circus.

Unfortunately for fans, but fortunately for Paul, the lone true boxing star in the main event dimmed out from an athletic standpoint decades ago. In this instance modern business practices allowed for a social media influencer to stage his largest money grab from a completely unnuanced public.

As Paul rose to the ring apron from the steps and looked around “Jerry’s World,” taking in the moment, it reminded me of an actual fighter when they’re about to enter the ring taking in the atmosphere before they risk their lives after a lifetime of dedication to try and realize a childhood dream. In this case though, this was a natural-born hustler realizing as he made it to the ring apron that his hustle was likely having its moment of glory.

In boxing circles, Jake Paul is viewed as a “necessary evil.” What occurs in his fights are merely an afterthought to the spectacle that is at the core of the social media realm that birthed him. Hopefully the public learned from the atrocity that occurred once the exhibition started that smoke and mirrors last for only so long. Hopefully Paul’s moment of being a boxing performer and acting like a true fighter comes to its conclusion. But he isn’t going away anytime soon, especially since his promotional company is now in bed with Netflix.

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Boxing Odds and Ends: Oscar Collazo, Reimagining ‘The Ring’ Magazine and More

Published

2 days ago

November 19, 2024

Arne K. Lang

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With little boxing activity over the next two weekends, there’s no reason to hold off anointing Oscar Collazo the Fighter of the Month for November. In his eleventh pro fight, Collazo turned heads with a masterful performance against previously undefeated Thammanoon Niyamtrong, grabbing a second piece of the title in boxing’s smallest weight class while ending the reign of the sport’s longest-reigning world title-holder. The match was on the undercard of the Nov. 16 “Latino Night” show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia headlined by the cruiserweight tiff between Mexico’s Zurdo Ramirez and England’s Chris Billam-Smith.

Collazo was a solid favorite, but no one expected the fight would be as one-sided. Collazo put on a clinic, as the saying goes. He took the starch out of Niyamtrong with wicked body punches before ending matters in the seventh. A left uppercut sent the Thai to the canvas for the third time and the referee immediately stepped in and stopped it.

Collazo, wrote Tris Dixon, “dissected and destroyed a very good fighter.” Indeed. A former Muay Thai champion, Niyamtrong (aka Knockout CP Freshmart) brought a 25-0 record and was making the thirteenth defense of his WBA strap.

A Puerto Rican born in Newark, Jersey, Oscar Collazo turned pro after winning a gold medal in the 2019 Pan American games in Lima, Peru. He was reportedly named after Oscar De La Hoya (we will take that info with a grain of salt), names Hall of Famer Ivan Calderon as a mentor and is co-promoted by Hall of Famer Miguel Cotto.

Collazo, 27, won the WBO version of the 105-pound title in his seventh pro fight with a seven-round beatdown of Melvin Jerusalem. He won a world title faster than any Puerto Rican boxer before him.

His goal now, he says, is to become a unified champion. He would be the first from the island in the modern era. Although Puerto Rico has a distinguished boxing history – twelve Boricua boxers are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame — there hasn’t been a fully unified champion from Puerto Rico since the WBO came along in 1988.

The other belt-holders at 105 are the aforementioned Jerusalem (WBC) and his Filipino countryman Melvin Taduran (IBF). Both won their belts in Japan with upsets of the Shigeoka brothers, respectively Yudai (Jerusalem) and Ginjiro (Taduran). Collazo would be a massive favorite over either.

A far more attractive fight would pit Collazo against two-time Olympic gold medalist Hasanboy Dusmatov. In theory, this would be an easy fight to make as the undefeated Uzbek trains in Indio, California, a frequent stomping ground of Collazo’s co-promoter Oscar De La Hoya who had a piece of the action when Dusmatov made his pro debut in Mexico. However, it’s doubtful that Dusmatov’s influential advisor Vadim Kornilov would let him take such a treacherous fight until the match-up had been properly “marinated,” by which time they both may be competing in a higher weight class. The Puerto Rican, who began his pro career at 110, is big for the 105-pound division notes the noted boxing historian Matt McGrain who is partial to the little guys.

—

Outside the ropes, the big news in boxing in November was the news that The Ring magazine had been sold to Turki Alalshikh. The self-acclaimed Bible of Boxing, which celebrated its 100^th anniversary in 2022, was previously owned by a subsidiary of Oscar De La Hoya’s company, Golden Boy Enterprises, which acquired the venerable publication in 2007. Alalshikh purportedly paid $10 million dollars.

Alalshikh, the head of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, confirmed the sale on social media on Monday, Nov. 11.

“Earlier this week, I finalized a deal to acquire 100% of The Ring Magazine, and I want to make a few things clear,” he said. “The print version of the magazine will return immediately after a two year hiatus and it will be available in the US and UK markets. The magazine will be fully independent, with brilliant writers and focusing on every aspect in the sport of boxing. We will continue to raise the prestige of The Ring Titles, and plans are already underway to have a yearly extravagant awards ceremony to celebrate the very best in the boxing industry.”

Alalshikh, blessed with an apparently unlimited budget, is already the most powerful man in the sport and more than a few concerns have been raised about his latest venture, especially in light of an incident involving prominent British scribe Oliver Brown.

Brown, the chief sports writer for the Telegraph who had previously covered three of Tyson Fury’s fights in Saudi Arabia, had his credential pulled for the Joshua-Dubois show at Wembley Stadium after calling the event “a grisly conduit for glorifying the Saudi regime.”

“I frankly do not trust Alalshikh to keep his personal aims from influencing the publication’s content,” says boxing writer Patrick Stumberg. One thing is certain: So long as the publication remains in the hands of the Saudis, the word “sportswashing” will never appear in the pages of The Ring magazine.

The Ring is the second major online boxing magazine to change hands this year. In February, Boxing Scene, one of the most heavily-trafficked sites in the ecosystem, was sold to Canadian-American entrepreneur Garry Jonas, best known as the founder of ProBox, a promotional entity headquartered in Plant City, Florida.

—

Mike Tyson’s showing against Jake Paul was mindful of something that Jimmy Cannon once wrote: “…the flesh was corrupted by time. The mind operated as if it was in another man’s head…the talent has been contaminated by age.”

Cannon was describing Joe Louis in Louis’s farewell fight against Rocky Marciano.

True, Jake Paul is no Rocky Marciano. To include their names in the same sentence borders on sacrilege. But the fabled Brown Bomber was 37 years old when he was rucked into retirement by Marciano on that October night at Madison Square Garden. At age 58, Mike Tyson was old enough to be Joe Louis’s father and yet human lemmings by the thousands couldn’t resist betting on him.

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The Hauser Report: Some Thoughts on Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul

Published

4 days ago

November 17, 2024

Thomas Hauser

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Jake Paul boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Friday night. The bout, streamed live on Netflix, was one of the most-watched fights of all time and, in terms of the level of competition, boxing’s least-consequential mega-fight ever.

We’re living in a golden age for spectator sports. Sports generate massive amounts of money from engaged fan bases and are more popular now than ever before. Today’s athletes are more physically gifted, better conditioned, and more skilled than their predecessors. Their prowess is appreciated and understood by tens of millions of fans.

Not so for boxing. For the sweet science, this is an era of “fools’ gold.” Yes, fighters like Oleksandr Usyk, Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue bring honor to the sport. But boxing’s fan base has dwindled to the point where most people have no idea who the heavyweight champion of the world is. The sport’s dominant promoter has a business model that runs hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the red. And most fights of note are contested behind a paywall that shrinks the fan base even more. Few sports fans understand what good boxing is.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old. Once upon a time, he was the most destructive boxer in the world and “the baddest man on the planet.” Prior to last Friday night, he hadn’t fought in nineteen years and hadn’t won a fight since 2003.

Jake Paul is a 27-year-old social media personality who wasn’t born when Tyson lost his aura of invincibility at the hands of Buster Douglas. Paul began boxing professionally three years ago and, before fighting Tyson, had compiled a 10-1 (7 KOs) record against carefully chosen opponents.

Netflix has roughly 283 million subscribers globally, 84 million of them in North America. Recently, it made the decision to move into live sports. On December 25, it will stream the National Football League’s two Christmas games on an exclusive basis.

Netflix took note of the fact that Tyson’s 2020 exhibition against Roy Jones drew 1.6 million pay-per-view buys and concluded that Tyson-Paul had the potential to be the most-viewed fight of all time. It purchased rights to the fight as an attention grabber and subscription seller for (a best-estimate) $40 million.

Tyson-Paul was originally scheduled for July 20. A compliant Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations sanctioned the bout as an official fight, not an exhibition. In deference to Tyson’s age, the fighters agreed that the match would be contested over eight two-minute rounds (women’s rules) with 14-ounce gloves (heavyweight gloves normally weigh ten ounces).

But on May 26, Tyson became nauseous and dizzy while on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles and needed medical assistance for what was later described as a bleeding ulcer. The fight was rescheduled for November 15. Later, Tyson described the incident on the plane as follows: “I was in the bathroom throwing up blood. I had, like, eight blood transfusions. The doctor said I lost half my blood. I almost died. I lost 25 pounds in eleven days. Couldn’t eat. Only liquids. Every time I went to the bathroom, it smelled like tar. Didn’t even smell like shit anymore. It was disgusting.”

Does that sound like a 58-year-old man who should be fighting?

As Eliot Worsell noted, Tyson-Paul contained all the elements of a successful reality show. “There are for a start,” he wrote, “celebrities involved, two of them. One is ‘old famous’ and the other ‘new famous’ and both bring large audiences with them. They need only tap something on their phone to guarantee the entire world pays attention. And that, in this day and age, is all you really need to green light a project like this.”

But Worsell added a word of caution, observing, “This has been the story of Jake Paul’s pro boxing career to date; one of smoke and mirrors, one of sycophants telling him only what he wants to hear. He has been fed a lie just as Mike Tyson is now being fed a lie, and on November 15 they will both play dress-up and be watched by millions. They will wear gloves like boxers and they will move like boxers – one hampered in this quest by old age and the other by sheer incompetence – and they will together make ungodly sums of money.”

There was early talk that 90,000 fans would jam AT&T Stadium on fight night. Initially, ticket prices ranged from $381 to $7,956. And those prices were dwarfed by four tiers of VIP packages topped by a two-million-dollar “MVP Owner’s Experience” that included special ringside seating at the fight for six people, luxury hotel accommodations, weigh-in and locker room photo ops, boxing gloves signed by Tyson and Paul, and other amenities.

But by Monday of fight week, ticket prices had dropped to as little as $36. Ringside seats were available for $900. And the press release announcing the eventual MVP Owner’s Experience sale backtracked a bit, saying the package was “valued at $2 million” – not that the actual sale price was $2 million. It also appeared that the purchase price included advertising for the law firm that purchased the package since the release proclaimed, “Just as every fighter in the ring stands to represent resilience, grit, and the pursuit of victory, TorkLaw stands in the corner of the people, fighting for justice and empowering those who need it most.”

That said, the fight drew 72,300 fans (inclusive of giveaway tickets) to AT&T Stadium. And the live gate surpassed $18 million making it the largest onsite gate ever in the United States for a fight card outside of Las Vegas. More than 60 million households watched the event live around the world.

The undercard featured a spirited fight between Mario Barrios and Abel Ramos that ended in a draw. Then came the second dramatic showdown between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.

Taylor-Serrano II was for all four major sanctioning body 140-pound belts. Two years ago, Katie and Amanda did battle at Madison Square Garden on a historic night that saw Taylor emerge with a controversial split-decision win. Katie is now 38 years old and her age is showing. Amanda is 36. Taylor was an early 6-to-5 betting favorite in the rematch but the odds flipped late in Serrano’s favor.

Amanda began Taylor-Serrano II in dominating fashion and wobbled Katie just before the bell ending round one. That set the pattern for the early rounds. Serrano looked like she could hurt Taylor, and Taylor didn’t look like she could hurt Serrano.

Then in round four, Serrano got hurt. A headbutt opened a gruesome gash on her right eyelid. As the bout progressed, the cut became more dangerous. From an armchair perspective, it looked as though the fight should have been stopped and the result determined by the judges’ abbreviated scorecards. But the ring doctor who examined Serrano allowed it to continue even though the flow of blood seemed to handicap Amanda more and more with each passing round.

In round eight, referee Jon Schorle took a point away from Taylor after the fourth clash of heads that he thought Katie had initiated. By then, Serrano’s face resembled a gory Halloween mask and the bout had turned into a non-stop firefight. Each woman pushed herself as far as it seemed possible to go.

In the eyes of most observers, Serrano clearly won the fight. This writer scored the bout 96-93 in Amanda’s favor. Then the judges had their say. Each one favored Taylor by a 95-94 margin.

“My God!” blow-by-blow commentator Mauro Ranallo exclaimed after the verdict was announced. “How does one rob Amanda Serrano after a performance like that?”

In keeping with the hyperbole of the promotion, one might say that it was the most-watched ring robbery (although not the worst) in boxing history.

CompuBox is an inexact tabulation. But there’s a point at which the numbers can’t be ignored. According to CompuBox, Serrano outlanded Taylor in nine of ten rounds with an overall 324-to-217 advantage in punches landed.

From a boxing standpoint, Taylor-Serrano II made the evening special. Casual fans who don’t know much about the sweet science saw a very good fight. But they also saw how bad judging undermines boxing.

Meanwhile, as good as Taylor-Serrano II was, that’s not what Netflix was selling to the public. Jake Paul’s most recent events had engendered disappointing viewer numbers. This one was a cultural touchstone because of Tyson.

Paul has worked hard to become a boxer. In terms of skills, he’s now a club fighter (which is more than 99.9 percent of the population could realistically dream of being). So, what happens when a club fighter fights a 58-year-old man who used to be great?

Jack Johnson fought until the age of 53, losing four of his last six bouts. And the two he won were against opponents named Rough House Wilson (who was disqualified in what would be his only recorded professional fight) and Brad Simmons (who was barred from fighting again in Kansas because he was believed to have thrown the fight against Johnson).

Larry Holmes fought until age 52, knocking out 49-year-old Mike Weaver at age 51 and winning a unanimous decision over Eric Esch (aka Butterbean) in his final bout.

Paul was a 2-to-1 betting favorite. Serious PED testing for the fight was a murky issue but seems to have been minimal. Taylor and Serrano underwent VADA testing in advance of their bout. Tyson and Paul didn’t.

Tyson weighed in for the contest at 228.4 pounds; Paul at 227.2 (well over his previous high of 200). Following the weigh-in, Mike and Jake came face to face for the ritual staredown and Mike slapped Jake. But the incident was self-contained with no ripple effect and had the feel of a WWE confrontation.

That raised a question that was fogging the promotion: “Would Tyson vs. Paul be a ‘real’ fight or a pre-arranged sparring session (which was what Tyson vs. Roy Jones appeared to be)?”

That question was of particular note because sports betting is legal in 38 states and 31 of them were allowing wagers on the fight.

Nakisa Bidarian (co-founder of Paul’s promotional company) sought to lay that issue to rest, telling ESPN, “There’s no reason for us to create a federal fraud, a federal crime. These are pro fights that consumers are making legal bets on. We have never and we’ll never do anything that’s other than above board and one hundred percent a pro fight unless we come out clearly and say, ‘Hey, this is an exhibition fight that is a show.'”

Tyson looked old and worried during his ring walk and wore a sleeve on his right knee. The crowd was overwhelmingly in his favor. But it’s an often-repeated truism that the crowd can’t fight. And neither could Mike.

Once upon a time, Tyson scored nine first-minute knockouts in professional fights. Not first-round. First-minute.

Against Paul, “Iron Mike” came out for round one as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard) while Jake kept a safe distance between them. Then Tyson tired and took all the air out of the fight. By round three, he was in survival mode with his head tucked safely behind his 14-ounce gloves. And Jake didn’t have the skills to hurt him.

The CompuBox numbers favored Paul by a 78-to-18 margin in punches landed. In other words, Tyson landed an average of two punches per round. The judges’ scores were 80-72, 79-73, 79-73 in Jake’s favor. It was a “real” fight but a bad one.

“I love Mike Tyson,” Terence Crawford posted on X afterward. “But they giving him too much credit. He looked like trash.”

Prior to the bout, Tris Dixon wrote, “Tyson-Paul is a weird event, and I can’t think of anything even remotely like it in terms of the level of fighters, celebrity, and their ages. The event is unique, and morally and ethically it is questionable. It is a cynical cash grab. I can’t see it being particularly entertaining as a high-level sporting event. But I’m sure once it starts you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

All true. But let’s remember that there was a time when Mike Tyson was universally recognized as the best fighter in the world. Not many people in history have been able to say that.

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Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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