Jake Paul (L) and Mike Tyson during their heavyweight bout at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas

Insipid win for Paul as 58-year-old Tyson goes distance

· RTE.ie

Jake Paul defeated Mike Tyson via unanimous decision in the former world heavyweight champion's first fight in 19 years.

The eight-round fight at the AT&T Stadium in Texas was streamed on Netflix, which struggled with the scale of demand, and was scored 80-72, 79-73 and 79-73 in favour of the YouTuber-turned-boxer.

The disappointing encounter followed another thrilling battle between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano that saw the Irish woman remain the undisputed world super-lightweight champion.

The opening round began with Paul, 27, using his youth advantage to repeatedly close the gap on 58-year-old Tyson, let loose a jab and quickly create distance.

Tyson was able to catch Paul with a few heavy body shots before the two fighters clinched, which elicited heavy boos from the crowd.

The second round followed a similar vein, Paul doing his best to avoid Tyson’s famously heavy blows before clinching again.

Round number three began much more explosively, with Tyson coming out swinging before being met with a series of left hooks from Paul.

Building in confidence, the YouTuber continued to land heavy blows on a static Tyson, who looked grateful for the bell at the end of the round.

The two fighters missed jabs at the start of the fourth, but Tyson struggled to keep pace with Paul, who was able to pick and choose his spots on the increasingly weary Tyson.

Paul landed a heavy one-two combo to kickstart the halfway mark of the bout as Tyson did his best to use vertical movement to avoid Paul’s strikes, the former heavyweight champion managing to land a stiff overhand right to end the round.

Tyson stood his ground in the sixth, sending Paul scarpering from each attempted strike, before the two exchanged heavy strikes throughout the seventh, which ended with Tyson landing a shot to the head.

But the bout was all but over headed into the final round, as Tyson took his time getting off the corner stool.

There was little of the famous power left in any of Tyson’s punches, and the pair embraced as the bell rang.

Paul landed 78 of 278 punches thrown, a barely mobile Tyson just 18/97. Their total of 95 shots landed was less than 20% of that in the Taylor-Serrano fight.