Mike Tyson may be 58 years old, but he can still put your lights out.
On Friday, November 15, the former unified heavyweight world champion will compete in his first pro boxing bout in nearly two decades when he meets ‘The Problem Child’ Jake Paul inside the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
This is going to be a painful lesson for Mike Tyson. He likes to say he gave me my start in boxing. Well I’m going to give him his end. #PaulTyson pic.twitter.com/Co7ihh1GTr
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) August 18, 2024
Ever since the announcement of their clash earlier this year, criticism has been lobbed at both Paul and the Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation for moving forward with a fight pitting the 28-year-old YouTuber against a man more than 30 years his elder.
However, we’re not just talking about any man. We’re talking about one of the scariest fighters in the history of the sweet science. A man who KO’d his first 19 opponents and walked away having slept 44 fighters in his iconic career. A man who, according to Joe Rogan, can still knock your head into “another dimension.”
“58 is 58, no matter what you’re taking and what they’re doing for you,” Rogan said in a recent episode of his JRE podcast with actor Russell Crowe. “You’re still 58. But 58-year-old Mike Tyson is not 50-year-old Mike Jones that lives down the street, it’s a different kind of human being. He can still knock your head into another dimension if he can catch you.
“The thing is, can he catch a 28-year-old guy who’s at the top of his career who is winning legitimate boxing matches? I mean, he’s beating former UFC world champions like Tyron Woodley. Jake had that very good fight with Tommy Fury who’s a legitimate boxer, that was a very good fight. And he just beat up Mike Perry who was a bare-knuckle champion.
“He’s a real fighter, he can fight, and if Mike Tyson and him are fighting and Mike can’t catch him? Then it’s hard to tell.”
Russell Crowe Offers His Take on the Return of Mike Tyson
Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe, who was Rogan’s guest, offered a slightly different take, suggesting that after so many years away from being ‘Kid Dynamite,’ he’s not so if Tyson can or even needs to be that guy again.
“The thing is, I was quite enjoying the second phase of Mike’s life,” said the Hollywood star. “I was terrified of him as a boxer. He was terrifying. Even when I met him backstage at a stadium one time at a fight, I was like ‘I’m still terrified of you.’
“Then that guy he started becoming where he became more explorative and he was looking into what the meaning of life is and having a smoke every now and then? I was like, ‘I’m enjoying this Mike, I’m liking the evolution’. What bothers me with this whole thing is that he’s got to kind of slide back into that warrior and I’m just not sure that he needed to do it.”
