McGovern vs. Palmer: The First Big International Prizefight on American Soil

Published

5 years ago

March 22, 2020

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If asked to name the first big international prizefight on American soil, most boxing historians would name the 1921 match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier, the idol of France. It’s hard to disagree. Dempsey’s heavyweight title was at stake and the event was a grand spectacle, attracting a crowd of more than 80,000, begetting the sport’s first million-dollar gate. However, 22 years earlier a match-up between Terry McGovern and Pedlar Palmer attracted considerable buzz and the event organizers contorted it into a spectacle by packaging it with frills that became standard pomp for international mega-fights.

Terrible Terry McGovern stood only five-foot-three and his best weight was a shade under 120 pounds. But my how he could hit. The noted boxing referee and pugilistic authority Charley White said of McGovern that he was a thunderstorm, a Krupp cannon and a Gatling gun all at the same time. Prominent boxing writer Robert Edgren said, “No other man in his class ever developed anything approaching his tremendous burst of fighting energy, his tremendous aggressiveness and his terrific punching power.”

When Jack Dempsey started concussing opponents left and right, it was said that he was a larger version of Terry McGovern, a supreme compliment.

McGovern had suffered only two defeats prior to meeting Pedlar Palmer, both by disqualification. He was in excellent form, having won 13 straight, 11 by KO. His knockout victims included top-notchers Harry Forbes, the pride of Chicago, Austin Rice, the Connecticut Iron Man, and Casper Leon, the Sicilian Swordfish. McGovern was recognized as the American bantamweight champion.

Born in 1880, Terry was six months old when his parents moved from Johnstown, Pennsylvania to Brooklyn, beating the great flood by nine years. The Brooklyn of Terry’s boyhood was America’s fourth largest city, a distinction it lost in 1898 when it was consolidated with the boroughs of Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island into the modern city of New York.

Brooklyn’s poster boy circa 1880 was Henry Ward Beecher, the pastor of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Congregational Church. A spellbinding orator, Beecher was America’s first great celebrity preacher; his sermons ran in dozens of major newspapers and anthologies of them out-sold popular fiction.

His fame was such that Brooklyn, in the eyes of outsiders, was perceived to be an overwhelmingly WASPish community. But the reality was different. By 1860, half the population was foreign born and half of that was Irish Catholic. And the Irish, with their knack for political organizing, soon dominated the political life of the city.

While Brooklyn’s Protestant clergymen condemned prizefighting from their pulpits, the city nonetheless developed a robust prizefighting subculture. Several bare-knuckle title claimants spent their formative years in Brooklyn, as did the first Jack Dempsey, the Nonpareil, an important transitional fighter as the sport moved into the gloved era.

McGovern was 18 years old when he engaged in his first 20-round fight. His performance caught the eye of Sam H. Harris, an ambitious young man then in his mid-20s. Harris arranged to be become Terry’s manager and proved to be an excellent fit. Then, as now, no matter how talented a boxer, he wasn’t going far without a well-connected manager. (Harris went on to have an illustrious career on Broadway, producing or co-producing 130 shows including many of Broadway’s biggest hits.)

Brooklyn in McGovern’s day, although a patchwork of ethnic enclaves, had an esprit-de-corps, a sense of togetherness that welded the populace into a tighter community. Among current Brooklyn boxers, none has a more avid fan base than Adam Kownacki. Take Kownacki’s level of popularity and multiply it several times over and that was Terrible Terry McGovern.

Pedlar Palmer

Thomas “Pedlar” Palmer grew up in a circus family. He was an acrobat who developed a novelty act in tandem with his brother. He took up boxing at age 15 and was performing at the National Sporting Club while still in his teens. He had 16 fights at the NSC before sailing off to the U.S. to keep his date with McGovern. Six of those fights were billed for the world bantamweight title, a division with no firm ceiling, fluctuating between 112 and 118 pounds. He never lost.

To a young British boxer, nothing matched the prestige of fighting at the National Sporting Club. The exclusive men’s club in London’s fashionable Covent Garden district was patronized by the crème-de-la-crème of London’s entrepreneurial class. They watched the fights in formal evening attire while adhering to a strict code of decorum that prohibited shouting. The Queensberry rules weren’t invented here, but were firmly applied here (with a few modifications), a big step toward universal acceptance. The NSC was the precursor of the British Boxing Board of Control.

The president of the National Sporting Club was the fabulous Earl of Lonsdale, but the day-to-day affairs of the club, and the matchmaking, were in the hands of A.F. “Peggy” Bettinson. A former English amateur lightweight champion, the autocratic Bettinson enforced the rules of the club with an iron fist.

Bettinson took a pecuniary interest in Pedlar Palmer, becoming his manager.

pedlar

Palmer (pictured against the backdrop of Brighton, the seaside resort city where he lived and trained) was reportedly illiterate, but his ring IQ, reflected in his nickname, “Box-o’-Tricks,” was off the charts. “He fights according to the style of his opponent and never fights two men the same way,” noted a British writer. “Quick and agile as a cat, he is here, there, and everywhere, putting into execution more dodges and expedients than two ordinary men,” said a leading boxing authority.

When Pedlar Palmer and “Peggy” Bettinson arrived in New York from London, a brass band was waiting at the pier to greet them. The following day, the fighter and his manager were feted with a banquet at their hotel.

The Venue

McGovern vs. Palmer was staged in an outdoor arena in Tuckahoe, a little village in Westchester County, 16 miles from midtown Manhattan and 22 minutes by train from Manhattan’s Grand Central depot. The arena, which was enclosed by a wooden fence, was situated directly across from Tuckahoe’s new railroad station. The land sloped gently down to where the ring was pitched. Situated in the back, roughly 100 yards from the ring, were two cottages that were deployed as dressing rooms. They had windows that looked down on the enclosure. Terry McGovern’s young wife stayed in one of the cottages with their two-month-old baby. She would not have been welcome at ringside as it was taboo for a woman to attend a prizefight.

The crowd at the Sept. 12, 1899 fight was variously estimated at 8,000 to 12,000. Nowadays, this would hardly be considered a large crowd, but it was a large crowd for this era; an era when the law restricted prizefights to property owned or leased by an athletic club. The attendance would have been larger if the bout had gone off the previous day as scheduled as that was a Monday and the racetracks would have been dark. Racetrack workers and racetrack denizens, by and large, were big fight fans. Unfortunately for the promoters, rain pushed the fight back one day where it went head-to-head with the opening day of the autumn meet at the Gravesend track in Coney Island.

In those days, the indicator of a mega-fight wasn’t how many people were there, but who was there and McGovern vs. Palmer attracted a who’s-who of luminaries from the fields of sports and entertainment plus seemingly every person of influence in Tammany Hall, New York City’s corrupt political machine. Special trains carrying fight fans arrived from Boston, Providence, Hartford, Philadelphia and Buffalo.

The pugilistic contingent, said a reporter, included every boxer of note, “from the top-notchers in the heavyweight division to the paper weights in the amateur ranks.” The list included John L. Sullivan, who received the loudest ovation as he came down the aisle, James J. Corbett, Tom Sharkey, Bob Fitzsimmons and Kid McCoy. The British delegation included grocery chain magnate Sir Thomas Lipton, the famous yacht racer whose name would be immortalized in a popular brand of tea.

In those days, the lion’s share of the large wagers on a big fight were made in the arena through so-called betting commissioners. The commissioners filled orders, betting “x” amount of dollars at specified odds if they were able to obtain those odds. Bets by prominent people were a staple of post-fight stories. With no federal income tax, a gambler had less reason to be discreet.

McGovern was favored. Odds of 10/8 were widely available as the arena was filling up, lengthening to 10/7 as the bout drew closer to its mid-afternoon starting time. The well-known bandleader John Phillip Sousa was no greenhorn when it came to getting the best of it. He reportedly risked $300 on McGovern to win $275.

The Preamble and the Fight

The Revolutionary War was old history, but there was still a trace of hard feeling between the two nations and the promoters seized upon it to ratchet up the drama.

Pedlar Palmer appeared first. Someone in his cottage signaled the band to strike up “God Save The Queen” and the anthem accompanied him as he made his walk to the ring behind a man holding aloft the British flag.

After Palmer climbed through the ropes, the band struck up “The Star Spangled Banner,” McGovern’s cue to begin his ring walk. Twelve-year-old Phil McGovern, the youngest of Terry’s two younger brothers, led the way, carrying the American flag. The fellow at the back of the procession waved the green flag of Ireland with its golden harp.

According to the correspondent for the New York World, when McGovern slipped through the ropes the cheer was deafening, reverberating in the hills miles away. The combatants were then gloved in the ring, as was the custom, and then went at it in one of the most anti-climatic fights in the history of the prize ring. It was all over in 152 seconds and that included the unscheduled 12-second break when the hammer slipped out of the timekeeper’s hands and he rang the bell by mistake.

Before the bout was 90 seconds old, Palmer was on the canvas, deposited there by a right-left combination. He got up but looked woozy and McGovern moved in for the kill. But he was over-anxious and Palmer was able to dodge his punches until he succeeded in tying him up. But as soon as the referee pried them apart, McGovern resumed his attack, snapping Palmer’s head back with a left to the jaw that sent him staggering toward the ropes and then putting him down for the count with a straight right hand to the point of the jaw. “America Forever: Knocks Out England in One Round,” read the headline above the Associated Press dispatch in the next day’s Los Angeles Times.

McGovern was mobbed as he left the ring. The horseshoe-shaped floral arrangement that was presented to him after the fight was robbed of all its flowers by souvenir-hunters. Back in Brooklyn, the scene was even more tumultuous.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, bonfires were kindled and fireworks in large quantities were set off as McGovern alighted from the streetcar, holding his baby in his arms with his wife at his side. With much difficulty, the police cleared a path to his residence. The McGoverns then resided in an apartment above a saloon that he had recently purchased. Downstairs, the saloon was mobbed and so much money was going across the bar, said the paper, that it seemed as if everyone in the neighborhood had won something.

The Aftermath

Terry McGovern’s star shone even brighter the following year. In 1900, he added the world featherweight belt to his laurels with an eighth-round stoppage of long-reigning title-holder George Dixon, stopped the formidable Oscar Gardner, the Omaha Kid, in three rounds, and needed only three rounds to put away lightweight champion Frank Erne in their non-title fight. He also became a big attraction on the vaudeville circuit, eventually assuming the lead role in the hokey melodrama (that’s redundant) “The Bowery After Dark.” McGovern played the hero, the fellow that gets to rescue the damsel in distress.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1901, in a mammoth upset, McGovern was knocked out cold in the second round by Young Corbett II (born William Rothwell), an unheralded fighter from Denver. Terrible Terry was never the same and washed out of the sport while still in his twenties. He was in and out of sanitariums the last few years of his life and exhibiting signs of dementia when he died of pneumonia at age 37. As for Pedlar Palmer, he returned to England and recaptured the bantamweight title after McGovern abandoned it, but he lost the title in his first defense and gradually became just another name fighter playing out the string, earning his largest paydays in bouts where he served as a building block for young fighters on the rise. He died at age 73 in Brighton.

—-

In searching for a parallel to McGovern-Palmer, Mike Tyson’s 91-second blowout of Michael Spinks at Atlantic City in 1988 jumped quickly to mind. Akin to McGovern-Palmer it was a match between a slugger and a clever boxer. The slugger was favored but not overwhelmingly so. It too was a unification fight: Tyson held the belts of all three major sanctioning bodies, but Spinks, who had been stripped by the IBF, had a stronger claim to the lineal heavyweight title. The bout attracted enormous buzz, drew a celebrity-studded crowd, and the victor, who never let the clever boxer display his wares, experienced a big spike in his famousness.

Tyson vs. Spinks attracted a crowd of roughly 22,000. A far more intimate gathering witnessed Terry McGovern’s fast demolition of Pedlar Palmer, but yet, as measured by goose pimples, it was every bit as spectacular. I wish that I had been there.

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

Published

9 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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