Mike Tyson to fight Jake Paul in match on Netflix on July 20

At age 58, Mike Tyson will be getting back in the boxing ring. Nicknamed ‘Iron Mike’, the former world heavyweight champion, whose career was marred by issues in and out of the ring, will take on social media influencer turned boxer Jake Paul on July 20 in a match that will be streamed live on Netflix, the company announced last week.

The bout, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will be the first fight for Tyson since 2020, when he and Roy Jones Jr., also a former world boxing champion, fought to a draw in an exhibition match. The event will be another step in Netflix’s aggressive push into live “sports-adjacent programming,” which has the potential to draw large audiences without the kind of investment that streaming games from professional sports leagues requires.

The company recently reached a multibillion-dollar, 10-year deal for the exclusive rights to stream World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship weekly wrestling show, “Raw.” The made-for-streaming boxing spectacle was brought about through a partnership between Netflix and Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions, the company he established in 2021 with Nakisa Bidarian to disrupt combat sports. He and Tyson will be paid about the same for the fight, but the parties would not reveal the amount. Paul, 27, began boxing in 2018 and has seen his star rise on his way to a 9-1 record.


His last fight was Saturday night, when he stopped Ryan Bourland in the first round. “It’s crazy to think that in my second pro fight, I went viral for knocking out Nate Robinson on Mike Tyson’s undercard,” Paul said in a statement. “Now, less than four years later, I’m stepping up to face Tyson myself to see if I have what it takes to beat one of boxing’s most notorious fighters and biggest icons.” Tyson, who turns 58 in June, was a phenomenon right from the start of his professional career in 1985. He became a champion by the age of 20 and won his first 37 professional matches.