Is Mike Tyson too old to be fighting Jake Paul? Ex-champ claims he’s ‘sparring young guys’ and ‘feels great’

Jesse Holland is among the longest-tenured media professionals in the combat sports news space, covering MMA, professional wrestling and boxing on a full-time basis since early 2004.

Mike Tyson is 58 years old.

Whether or not Texas Department of Licensing & Regulation (TDLR) was acting responsibly when rubber-stamping his upcoming fight against 27 year-old Jake Paul is likely to be debated in the weeks following their Netflix-streamed showdown, which takes place this Friday night (Nov. 15, 2024) at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Just don’t expect to see the same Tyson who embarrassed himself against Kevin McBride back in June 2005.

“I was a different person then,” Tyson told Manouk Akopyan. “I was using narcotics, alcohol back then. I’m not that person anymore. I see a better picture of myself now. I see light. I see the world from a different perspective now. I feel great. I’ve got the rounds in me. Listen, I’m sparring young guys, thirties, twenties, I’m sparring young guys and they’re hitting me real hard. It wasn’t a picnic when I first started training. I’m fighting with younger guys and they’re really giving me a shellacking at first. I’m doing my share.”

Narcotics and alcohol are out, weed and mushrooms are in.

Outside of his exhibition bout against Roy Jones Jr. back in late 2020, Tyson has not competed since registering a technical decision loss to McBride when “Iron” was 38 years old. All we have to go on at this point are sparring videos that make Tyson look like a power-punching killer with knockout power.

We just have to ignore the fact that sometimes it’s hard for him to walk.