In his latest column, former Olympian and heavyweight contender Frazer Clarke shares his huge concerns over Mike Tyson fighting Jake Paul in Dallas on Friday and hopes someone has ‘the bottle’ to stop it on the night.
You can’t escape Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul. Whether you like it or not, there has been no ignoring it this week.
And I can understand it. Both are huge names with their profiles and I live in the real world. I know the pull Jake Paul has now. I didn’t really understand it before, but I do now.
When I go to boxing events, places where there are a lot of youths, people aren’t asking me what I think of Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury, people ask me about Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. It is just the way the world is. We are in a new era of young men. But we could struggle to find real fighters going forward in the future because people think YouTube boxing is the reality.
Jake Paul appeals to a certain demographic. But Mike Tyson appeals to the masses, to the youth and to everyone else. Mike Tyson is an absolute legend but I’m sitting here just wanting him to come out in one piece. I’m not saying Paul will definitely do a job on him but the reality is this is a young man versus an old man.
Tyson is 58 years old and his recent health problems are well-documented. In the last few months, boxing and health have been two things that have been very apparent in my mind.
I’m a fit, young man and look what happened to me against Fabio Wardley. That can happen to anyone. I was able to recover well, I had my surgery and pretty soon after I was up and about again and was fine. But for something like that to happen to an old man, someone my father’s age, that it is concerning.
Who is held responsible if something terrible happens? I don’t know how we have got to this stage where it has been sanctioned. If something did happen, I am sure to God that someone would be in trouble with the law. I think it would have to go down that avenue.
If you have a 58-year-old man fighting a young man anywhere else in normal circumstances, I am telling you right now; someone is shutting the show down. If I walk into my local community centre and see a man of that age who is not in great health fighting a young man who is trying to knock him out, believe me I am getting in the ring and stopping it.
It could get very uncomfortable. Let’s just hope there is someone in the corner or in the crowd who has got the bottle to have the towel ready and jump in if it gets too much. I don’t want to see a legend go down like that. I’m not saying that is going to happen, but it is possible.
I am going to say Jake Paul will get the win. He might be just too young and too fit and from what I have seen from him, he is an athlete with some real power.
I can’t call it as a fight, I just hope Tyson gets out of the ring alive and okay. I’m not bothered about the result. It is a circus. I don’t know in what way anyone can come out of this in a good light. The only good way anyone can shine is if Tyson knocks Jake Paul out.
A victory for Paul in these circumstances means nothing at all. If he fought a live fighter, one around the same age, I would be the first to applaud him. And I do applaud him for what he has done in the sport so far to some extent. But not for this fight, against an old legend. There is nothing for him to take from it in boxing terms, but I imagine it is going to fill both their pockets up quite nicely.
I hear he is planning to call out Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez if he wins. This is chalk and cheese from fighting a retired heavyweight legend to a pound-for-pound great, still at the top of his game. He’ll get his arse handed to him.