By Keith Idec

ARLINGTON, Texas – Jake Paul publicly admitted to carrying Mike Tyson through the latter portion of their intensely scrutinised eight-round heavyweight fight Friday night.

An industrious YouTube reporter informed the easily victorious Paul during his post-fight press conference that former two-division champ Andre Ward intimated to him that Paul “carried” the legendary Tyson when it was beyond obvious that Paul’s 58-year-old opponent couldn’t compete with a much younger, fresher fighter 19 years after Tyson’s previous professional bout. Ward was part of Netflix’s commentary team at AT&T Stadium and apparently didn’t want to make that type of accusation without concrete evidence.

Paul provided all the proof Ward would need.

“Yeah, I mean a little bit, yeah,” Paul said when asked about taking it easy on a vulnerable Tyson. “There was a point where, you know, I was just like, ‘OK, he’s not really engaging back. And so, I don’t know if he’s tired or whatever.’ And I could just tell his age was showing a little bit.

“And I just have so much respect for him, and that like violence, war thing between us – like after he slapped me [at their weigh-in Thursday night] I wanted to, you know, be aggressive and take him down, knock him out and all that stuff. But that kinda went away as the rounds went on.”

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – NOVEMBER 15: (L-R) Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight during LIVE On Netflix: Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium on November 15, 2024 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images for Netflix © 2024)

An exhausted, reluctant Tyson essentially stopped throwing punches by the third round of an official fight that was criticised worldwide once it was scheduled because of their huge age gap and a beaten Tyson’s declaration in June 2005 that he had no desire to ever box again. Paul (11-1, 7 KOs) won by huge margins on all three scorecards – 80-72, 79-73 and 79-73 – over an unapologetic Tyson (50-7, 44 KOs, 2 NC), a beloved former heavyweight champion who acknowledged that he entered the ring with a right leg injury that necessitated wearing a protective sleeve.

While Paul-Tyson attracted a lot of criticism from media outlets, medical experts and fans who worried for Tyson’s safety, a crowd in excess of 72,000 packed the Dallas Cowboys’ home stadium to watch the seven-bout card headlined by their unusual spectacle. According to Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s partner in MVP Promotions, that crowd generated ticket sales of roughly $18.1 million, a U.S. record for any boxing match that took place outside of Nevada.

Paul and Bidarian added that more viewers watched his fight with Tyson on Netflix than saw “the Super Bowl” live. They said they’ll release viewership figures in conjunction with Netflix in due time.

Paul mentioned 120 million viewers in the immediate aftermath of his points victory. Netflix, which didn’t charge subscribers anything extra to view four fights on the Paul-Tyson card, has almost 283 million subscribers in more than 190 countries.

Buffering issues caused complaints worldwide during the undercard, but apparently were fixed by the time Tyson and Paul entered the ring around midnight ET in the U.S. (5 a.m. GMT in the UK). If millions of viewers believed Paul held back, they were correct, according to the instigating influencer himself.

“Definitely. Definitely a bit,” Paul said. “You know, I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t wanna hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”