After watching Jake Paul defeat Mike Tyson during Friday night’s historic event, many were left disappointed for a variety of reasons.
Whether it was Netflix being unable to handle the record number of people streaming the event or those disappointed with how boring the bout was, there’s one group that may be able to take some action: Bettors.
Many had considered the matchup to be a sham before the YouTube star and the retired boxing icon even stepped in the ring. But it was Paul’s actions during the fight and his comments at the press conference after that have provided more ammo for those critics.
And, according to one lawyer, it could open the path for a lawsuit against those involved.
“It wouldn’t shock me one bit to see a lawsuit filed on this fight,” Dan Lust, a sports attorney at Moritt Hock & Hamroff and Law Professor at New York Law School, told the New York Post this week.
After Tyson looked to be competing well in the first two rounds, the 58-year-old former heavyweight champ began to look visibly tired and was wobbled several times by Paul over the next six rounds.
However, the 27-year-old didn’t go for the knockout, instead appearing to take it easy on Iron Mike, taunting him at times and then bowing and shaking hands before the final bell was even close to ringing.
At his post-fight press conference, Paul told reporters that he “didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”
When asked whether he took his foot off the pedal, Paul responded, “yeah, definitely,” and that he “wanted to give the fans a show.”
Paul also admitted to having “carried” Tyson during the fight.
“Yeah, a little bit. There was a point where I was like ‘OK, he’s not really engaging back.’ And so I don’t know if he is tired or hurt or whatever, and I could just tell that his age was showing a little bit and I just have so much respect for him and that violence, war thing between us … kind of went away as the rounds went on.”
These comments didn’t help the optics that this was a glorified money-making exhibition, which could anger some bettors – of which there were a lot of them.
According to reports, the Tyson-Paul fight received four times more betting action than any other match, with the fight’s most likely outcome heading into the bout, in terms of betting odds, being Paul winning by knockout.
“I watched the fight very closely, lines were skewing toward knockouts … because logically it would point toward ‘Tyson is too old to take a big punch’ or ‘Jake hasn’t felt someone with Tyson’s power,’” Lust said.
The lawyer also noted that Paul’s post-fight comments would have been fine, if he had been referring to just the final round, since the final moments wouldn’t have put the entire fight in jeopardy.
Since he did not, Lust said that opened up a can of worms and gave fuel to skeptics.
“The expectation was this was going to be a real fight sanctioned by Texas,” Lust told the outlet. “They are telling you this is not an exhibition.”
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) sanctioned the bout.
“Paul taking bows and not fighting to the last minute, the optics are just odd,” Lust said. “Would it shock me if there was a class action lawsuit? No. It’s not on me to form one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see one.”
Another complicating factor is that boxers are not paid if the fight doesn’t happen – and Tyson admitted this week that his medical issues which caused the fight to be delayed from its original July date were much worse than previously reported.
Paul said he had made $40 million to fight Tyson, so there could be an argument made that the fight was put on so that the two fighters could get paid, while avoiding serious injury.
“The precedent is set nationally that if you sue as a gambler or fan, you don’t have a chance to win. They generally get thrown out because courts have held that the plaintiffs don’t have standing to sue. In this particular framework, the promoter is the fighter. All of a sudden (Tyson) gets magically healthy enough to fight, looking like a shell of himself compared to training videos.”
Lust also said a potential case has a bit more legs than typical legal gripes by gamblers, given Paul’s role as a promoter of the event as well as a competitor.
In this case, Paul helped make up unconventional rules for the fight, with different-sized gloves, shorter and fewer rounds in order to sell to the public that the boxing legend could hang with the YouTube star.
Retired NFL star Michael Irvin, a friend of Tyson, said during a radio appearance that there allegedly was a rule preventing uppercuts – one of boxing’s heaviest punches and a Tyson trademark — from being thrown in the fight.
“I was looking for that patent ‘one in the body, one on the uppercut,” the 58-year-old Dallas Cowboys legend said. “When he hits that it’s boom boom, boom. I want to see that. But we didn’t get that, not a one.
“And I saw someone else say that it was in the contract ‘no uppercuts.’ They had it in the contract. Come on guys, why wouldn’t Mike Tyson throw an uppercut?”
The question now becomes whether the fight should’ve been sanctioned by the TDLR.
“People trusted that the fight was properly sanctioned. Otherwise, the general population wouldn’t have bet on it,” Lust said.
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