It was the Tyson v Paul fight event in Arlington, Texas, at the weekend encapsulated all that was good, bad, and ugly in the murky world of professional boxing.
First, the good:
The clash between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano—ten punishing, exciting, and entertaining rounds of toe-to-toe, warrior-like fighting, the kind you wouldn’t want to see a family member involved in. Excruciatingly tough.
For the spectator, though, it was edge-of-the-seat stuff that made you wish the two protagonists would have their purse money doubled.
Great for the fans, but a fight that had me begging promoters not to encourage a third contest. Think of their health, I say.
Taylor is 38, Serrano two years younger, and both are of an age when retirement from the hardest sport in the world beckons.
The bad:
The coverage by Netflix, where buffering was the order of the day, and the decision to stage all the discussions and interviews in the open arena—rendering even the guests sitting virtually next to each other deaf to what was being said—proved bonkers.
Live football in the UK features such pundit panellists who are housed within a studio specially built inside the stadia to cut out all the background noise.
It's common sense.
We can but hope that if Netflix continues to go down the sporting route—and they were plugging two big Christmas Day NFL games—they’ll learn from the Texas fiasco.
And did we really need to hear the over-the-top rantings of commentators with nothing meaningful to say?
The ugly:
It wasn’t difficult to pick out the ugly in the AT&T Arena; and I’m not referring to anyone in particular, but to the reason this entire circus was staged…
Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson.
What a damp squib that turned out to be!
I think that pretty soon after the first bell we came to realise that all those pre-fight videos of Tyson on the punchbag or the pads were simply 10-second bursts to suck the viewer in, like the trailer of a movie that promises so much but delivers dross.
Tyson had zilch to offer in terms of fitness and stamina, but he didn’t look his age—58—he looked much older. Where is Help the Aged when you need it?
Was his walk to the ring too much for him? It looked like it. His legs could barely hold him up. Even so, Paul did the right thing in refusing to mix it with the ex-world heavyweight champion. He threw very few punches and danced his way to victory in his diamond-encrusted shorts.
It meant that the 70,000 people inside the arena and the 170m viewers worldwide who had to keep restarting the coverage because of the buffering wasted their time and money.
Yes, folks, we were mugged.
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As always, please enjoy, keep fit, and stay healthy.
Frank
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