Jake Paul will have to fight a real boxer in order to be taken seriously

What if Jake Paul had reached his mid-20s, a millionaire many times over but unhappy with his career as Infamously Disliked YouTuber, and decided his true love was golf?

Would he have spent the last few years staging matches against famous people who also golf, dedicating himself to the sport while beating, say, Steph Curry, Tony Romo and Justin Timberlake? Who would he have played in the Netflix special, after which he declared himself golf's king? Jack Nicklaus, probably. He's 84.

These are the things you can think about while watching Paul in the ring late Friday night against Mike Tyson. There was certainly no reason to pay attention to the boxing. Paul, a 27-year-old whose fame and fortune are an utter mystery to anyone over the age of 30, looked like someone who's put in the time and effort to turn himself into a competent boxer. Tyson, 58, looked every bit like someone who hadn't fought professionally for 19 years, who spent decades abusing his body with various substances, who was wearing a sleeve on one knee, and who suffered a medical emergency that hospitalized him six months ago. The idea that Tyson could maybe manage to be Iron Mike again lasted about a minute, as he chased his much younger opponent across the ring, failed to catch him with a punch of consequence, and quickly started to look old, slow, and gassed.

By the fourth round, after Paul staggered Tyson with a series of left hands the former heavyweight champion lacked the reflexes to avoid, the question wasn't who would win the fight - there was no doubt about that - but why the younger fighter wasn't pressing his advantage. Every time it seemed like Paul might be starting a finishing push, he backed off after a brief exchange, allowing Tyson to stand in the centre of the AT&T Stadium ring, stoic and immobile, a ghost of the terrifying warrior he was 40 years ago.

From there, the fight - eight blissfully short two-minute rounds - proceeded to its dull and predictable conclusion. The crowd that came to see Tyson knock the smirk off that kid's face started booing as it became clear neither boxer was going to do much in the way of actual boxing. The only confrontation of note came from the broadcast crew, as analyst Roy Jones, Jr. and play-by-play announcer Mauro Ranallo argued over whether Tyson's habit of gnawing on his left glove was a sign the fighter was in danger or just one of his many odd quirks.

Paul won a unanimous decision. Only he will know why his performance was so tepid. Was he just being careful to avoid Tyson's once-thunderous power? Did he quickly realize the absurdity of fighting a broken down 58-year-old and not want to make it look any worse than it clearly was? Was he just trying to stretch it out so the Netflix special had more quantity if not quality?

On that last point, the irony is that Paul, as one of the co-owner's of the fight's promotion company, had already delivered an impressive card, highlighted by a spectacular fight between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor, a rematch of their 2022 classic. That bout delivered everything one could want from a title fight, as the women battled each other to exhaustion. It even had a baffling scoring decision, with Taylor winning unanimously, to underscore how much it felt like championship boxing.

The desultory Tyson-Paul fight felt pointless by comparison, and while Tyson indicated postfight that he may like to fight again for some reason, the bigger question is what Paul will do next. A dominant performance against a shell of a champion will do little to blunt the criticism that Paul, 11-1 as a professional, hasn't proven himself against actual competitive boxers. He insists he wants to be a world champion, but hasn't fought anyone that would put him on the path to a title fight. And since he's a promoter himself, he's obviously capable of booking more challenging opponents.

Paul's sent mixed signals on that front, musing about facing someone like Canelo Alvarez, one of the best fighters in the world, but also insisting that he wants to put on showpiece events, which again sounds like code for him wanting to beat up semi-famous non-boxers. Or old boxers.

He has a point from from a business sense. The Netflix audience was so vast it caused problems for many viewers, crashing and freezing the service during the undercard, though the technical problems seemed largely solved by the main event. Netflix must have been thrilled with the attention, and would welcome the chance to feature Paul against a random pug of his choosing for his next fight.

But in the short documentary series released on Netflix in the buildup to the fight, Paul repeatedly bemoans how he doesn't get any respect for his boxing ability, and seems puzzled by how this continues to be so.

He's a smart guy, so he can't be having that hard a time figuring it out. Fight a real boxer, man. And no, Sugar Ray Leonard, 68, doesn't count.