We are all to blame for Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson
By Amy Kaplan
On Thursday morning the news broke that 27-year-old Jake Paul would be fighting 57-year-old Mike Tyson. After we all stopped collectively screaming into the void, the reality finally began to sink in.
We did this to ourselves.
We have no one to blame for this fight but us. Without people talking about, writing stories about, or buying Paul's fights, this would not be happening. The quickest way to make something disappear is to ignore it. We've been taught this since kindergarten when the playground bully pulled our hair. Don't react, that's what they want. But we never listened.
No one, not even another 57 year old man has any business fighting Tyson who has been seen walking with a cane and using a wheelchair. Where is fighter safety in all this?
We have been mad at Paul since he fought Ben Askren, and that did $1.5 million in PPV buys. So clearly, we weren't that mad. And even if you didn't actually shell out the money for the PPV, you probably talked about it. And we all know the power of social media. It matters.
Everyone is to blame, including myself.
Jake Paul keeps fighting old men because we keep watching it
We started the trend that Jake Paul boxing an old guy sells. It sold with Ben Askren, it sold with Woodley (both times), and it sold with Anderson Silva and Tommy Fury. Even Nate Diaz couldn't save us from ourselves.
I know, i'm writing a stroy right now and giving the fight attention, I see the irony. But that's my job. If you stop talking about, clicking stories about or reading about Paul, we'll stop writing. It's a hamster wheel, someone has to get off. Please get off.
If we want these kinds of fights to go away we have to stop buying them, we have to stop tweeting about them, and we have to make the bully give up. Until then, he'll keep booking these fights.