ARLINGTON, Texas — The boos from a crowd wanting more action were growing again when Jake Paul dropped his gloves before the final bell, and bowed toward 58-year-old Mike Tyson.

Paying homage to one of the biggest names in boxing history didn’t do much for the fans that filled the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys on Friday night.

Paul won an eight-round unanimous decision over Tyson as the hits didn’t match the hype in a fight between the 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer and the former heavyweight champion in his first sanctioned pro bout in almost 20 years.

All the hate from the pre-fight buildup was gone, replaced by boos from bewildered fans hoping for more from a fight that drew plenty of questions about its legitimacy long beforehand.

The fight wasn’t close on the judge’s cards, with one giving Paul an 80-72 edge and the other two calling it 79-73.

“Let’s give it up for Mike,” Paul said in the ring, not getting much response from a crowd that started filing out before the decision was announced. “He’s the greatest to ever do it. I look up to him. I’m inspired by him.”

Tyson came after Paul immediately after the opening bell and landed a couple of quick punches but didn’t try much else the rest of the way.

Even fewer rounds than the normal 10 or 12 and two-minute rounds instead of three, along with heavier gloves designed to lessen the power of punches, couldn’t do much to generate action.

Paul was more aggressive after the quick burst from Tyson in the opening seconds, but the punching wasn’t very efficient. There were quite a few wild swings and misses.

“I was trying to hurt him a little bit,” said Paul, who improved to 11-1. “I was scared he was going to hurt me. I was trying to hurt him. I did my best. I did my best.”

Tyson mostly sat back and waited for Paul to come to him, with a few exceptions. It was quite the contrast to the co-main event, another slugfest between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano in which Taylor kept her undisputed super lightweight championship with another disputed decision.

Paul said he eased up starting about the third round because he thought Tyson was tired and vulnerable.

“I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt somebody that didn’t need to be hurt,” Paul said.

It was the first sanctioned fight since 2005 for Tyson, who fought Roy Jones Jr. in a much more entertaining exhibition in 2020. Paul started fighting a little more than four years ago.

“I didn’t prove nothing to anybody, only to myself,” Tyson said when asked what it meant to complete the fight. “I’m not one of those guys that looks to please the world. I’m just happy with what I can do.”

The fight was originally scheduled for July 20 but had to be postponed when Tyson was treated for a stomach ulcer after falling ill on a flight. His record is now 50-7 with 44 knockouts.

Tyson slapped Paul on the face during the weigh-in a night before the fight, and they traded insults in several of the hype events, before and after the postponement.

The hate was long gone by the end of the anticlimactic fight.

“I have so much respect for him,” Paul said. “That violence, war thing between us, like after he slapped me, I wanted to be aggressive and take him down and knock him out and all that stuff. That kind of went away as the rounds went on.”

The fight set a Texas record for combat sports with a gate of nearly $18 million, according to organizers, and Netflix had problems with the feed in the streaming platform’s first live combat sports event. Netflix has more than 280 million subscribers globally.

“This is the biggest event,” Paul said. “Over 120 million people on Netflix. We crashed the site.”

Among the celebrities were basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal and former NFL star Rob Gronkowski, along with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, two foes with Tyson’s heyday, greeted him in his locker room before the fight.

Tyson infamously bit Holyfield on the ear in a 1997 bout, and appeared to have one of his gloves in his mouth several times during the Paul bout. He was asked if he had problem with his mouthpiece.

“I have a habit of biting my gloves,” Tyson said. “I have a biting fixation.”

“I’ve heard about that,” the interview responded.

1250386835

Mario Barrios retained the WBC welterweight title in a draw with Abel Ramos on the undercard. Barrios was in control early before Ramos dominated the middle rounds. Each had a knockdown in the 12-round bout.

It was the first fight for the 29-year-old Barrios since he was appointed the WBC welterweight champ when Terence Crawford started the process of moving up from the 147-pound class.

Barrios, who is 29-2-1, won the interim WBC title with a unanimous decision over Yordenis Ugás last year. The 33-year-old Ramos is 28-6-3.

For Kaley Cuoco, Sundays mean one thing: football.

Her fiancé Tom Pelphrey first made her a fan. “Because Tom is so obsessed with football, if I wasn’t going to join then I would be an outsider,” she says. “I needed to be included so I jumped in. And by the way, I’m so glad I did.”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Advertisement

Now, she describes football season as “very iconic and sacred” in their house: “Every hour of it is taken very seriously.” The rest of the year, Sundays are reserved for decompressing with reality TV and true crime. “Instead of calling it trash [TV], I call it my ‘girl TV,’” she says. “I love ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Andy Cohen, I watch all his [series]. I’m watching every season of ‘Love Is Blind.’”

The actress, whose dark comedy series “Based on a True Story” Season 2 streams on Peacock on Nov. 21, lives with Pelphrey, their daughter Matilda and a host of farm animals on a ranch outside Los Angeles. Here’s how she’d spend an ideal Sunday in L.A. when football is not in session.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

8 a.m.: Wake up with the dogs

A normal wake-up for me is 7 a.m. because we have four dogs who will not let me sleep past 7. It’s not even my daughter, it’s our stupid dogs. But my dream Sunday is sleeping in at least until 8 a.m. and having my coffee by myself with no one bothering me. Having coffee in the morning is my favorite thing in the entire world, I look forward to it.

I am a half-and-half girl. By the way, with all the bad ingredients in all this s— now, half-and-half is actually one of the cleanest things you can eat. I’m just saying! Tom looks at me like, ‘I cannot believe that you put that in your coffee.’ I’m like, ‘Read the ingredients in your oat milk! You think you’re being all healthy, look at that s—.’ Mine is just milk and cream. Organic, simple, done.

9 a.m.: Quick workout sesh

If I have a little time for myself, I’ll go to my yoga class. I go to CorePower and I sweat my ass off. I am not the type of person that can work out in my house alone. So I’ve been going for years and years and years.

I love Pilates as well. And I ride my horses too. I do multiple riding lessons a week and I personal train. I get very bored … like this morning, I personal trained and tomorrow I’m going to have a riding lesson. I definitely like to switch it up. But I always go back to CorePower because I love it.

11 a.m.: Weekly manicure

Sunday is also my manicure day. That is one of my favorite things to do. I go to Helen’s Nails in the Valley and I love it. I always have my nails done and that’s always on Sunday.

Helen’s been my girl for 18 years. I’ve followed her to five locations. I don’t go to anyone else. I don’t even get my nails done when I’m working on set. I’m very loyal, OK? She is the best of the best. And it’s not even that I need it, I [just] enjoy that time. It’s like my gym.

For every job, I pick a nail color. And so depending on what the job is, I will stick with that one color for the entire thing. It also helps with continuity. For Season 1 of “Based on a True Story,” I purposely had a crimson blood red color. It just went with the theme. For “Harley Quinn,” I wasn’t on camera so I got to do whatever the hell I want. But I think if that Harley was [live action], there would be 10 different colors and it would all be chipped. Not perfectly done at all.

Noon: Take turns with Matilda

When Tom and I are on duty with Matilda, a long time ago we smartly [decided to] take turns. We find it pointless for both of us to be trying to watch Matilda, because then you just have two people who are exhausted.

I’ll go in the bedroom and get in my bed — I’m not kidding, it could be 2 in the afternoon — and I watch trash TV for two hours. And then we switch and I come out and play with Matilda and Tom goes and does what he does.

2 p.m.: Jump around at Sky Zone

Sky Zone is so brilliant because they can’t get hurt. She [Matilda] really can run into anything, run up the wall, fall into the pit and she’s laughing [the whole time]. And she loves to bounce, she thinks bouncing is so cool. So anything like that, she freaking loves it. And by the time she gets home, she’s so tired. We love it there.

3 p.m.: Erewhon run for dinner prep

I always feel like groceries just [get up and] leave. Everyone’s eating everything constantly. Sometimes we do delivery, but I think it’s weird, people picking out your food, so I do grocery shopping as well on Sundays.

I hate to admit the love I have for Erewhon. It’s completely overpriced. You go in, buy a $40 smoothie. I admit it is crazy. With that said, I’ve bought apparel there. Like, I have a real problem. I buy sweatshirts, I’ve got shopping bags. Tom’s like, “What are you doing?” I think they have the best food, the best ingredients. I love my shopping experience. Mr. Erewhon, wherever that person is, Mr. and Mrs. Erewhon? Brilliant. I don’t know how you did it.

5 p.m.: Dinner in front of the tube

I love cooking dinner. And I’ll make stuff for Matilda for the next day and prep some of her food. On Sunday when I have time, I’ll cook something that Tom will want. Usually he’ll put a steak on. And since I don’t eat meat, he’ll make the steak and then I’ll make the sides and we’ll sit and have dinner.

Tom’s very simple, like me. He wants meat and potatoes. I don’t want the meat, but I want very simple dishes. So we’re not very adventurous in our [eating habits] although now I see it in my daughter. She wants rice and beans and nothing else. I’m like, Oh, my God, I’ve created a monster.

And we love TV, so we’ll watch some TV while we’re eating. We just started the Cate Blanchett show on Apple, “Disclaimer.” It’s Alfonso Cuarón’s show and he’s never done TV before. It’s fantastic. We did “Menendez Brothers” for the last few weeks. One of our special rooms in our house is a theater, so we love to watch movies down there. We watched “His Three Daughters” the other night, fantastic. We watched “Blink Twice,” we hadn’t seen that and loved it.

9 p.m.: Bedtime!

I used to go to bed very early. And I will be honest, if Tom’s gone, I will get in bed at 8:30 p.m. It’s not that I’m going to sleep, I want to get in bed with my dogs and watch my bad TV. That’s what I love to do. But that’s obviously not every single night. So then, when he’s here, I stay up later because he’s such a night owl and I hate that there’s all these hours I miss hanging out with him, so I try and stay up a little later. We’ll watch a movie and go to sleep closer to 11 p.m., but when I’m alone, I’m in bed before 9.

Social media star-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson are going head-to-head in a live boxing match on Friday night, streaming on Netflix.

Paul and Tyson met on Thursday night for a weigh in and final face-off. After his opponent allegedly stepped on his foot, Tyson slapped Paul in the face.

“The talk is over,” Tyson, who weighed in at 228 pounds, said before leaving the stage.

“Now it’s personal,” Paul, who weighed in at 227 pounds, responded.

Paul told CNN that he believes in his skill and is not nervous. He also said he thinks he will knockout Tyson — who is known for his brutal knockout wins — in the fifth or sixth round.

How to watch the fight

Paul vs. Tyson will be the main event on Friday’s fight card with six other matches scheduled to kick off Netflix’s first live-streamed boxing event. Anyone with Netflix access will be able to watch at no additional cost.

The stream will begin at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Six other fights will take place before Paul and Tyson’s heavyweight ring walk, so their fight likely won’t start until hours later.

Jake Paul: A 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-fighter

Paul, 27, rose to fame on social media platforms with viral six-second videos on Vine and prank content with his older brother, Logan Paul, on YouTube. Today, Paul boasts over 20 million subscribers on his own YouTube channel.

The younger Paul brother had a brief acting career with a recurring role on Disney’s Bizaardvark from 2016-2018. Soon after leaving the show, he began his boxing career with an exhibition match against fellow YouTuber Deji Olatunji. Paul won by technical knockout. His first professional fight was in 2020 against YouTuber AnEsonGib, who he defeated in a technical knockout in the first round.

Paul was accused of sexual assault by TikToker Justine Paradise in 2021. Paradise says that Paul forced her to perform oral sex. Paul has denied these accusations.

Mike Tyson: The 58-year-old former heavyweight champ

Tyson, 58, began his boxing career in 1985. In 1986, Tyson defeated Trevor Berbick and became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history.

Friday’s matchup will mark Tyson’s first professional fight in almost 20 years. His last professional fight before retirement was a loss to Irish boxer Kevin McBride in 2005. Tyson fought multi-weight class champion Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition match in 2020.

In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping 18-year-old pageant contestant Desiree Washington. Tyson was sentenced to six years in prison. He was released on parole after three years and resumed his career, though he’s been a registered sex offender since.

He was accused of rape again in 2023 by a woman who claims the assault occurred in the early ’90s in a limousine in Albany, NY. She filed a lawsuit seeking $5 million for “physical, psychological and emotional injury” since the alleged incident. Tyson denied the allegations in records filed last year in district court in the Northern District of New York. The case is ongoing, and court documents indicate the latest filings from Tyson’s team are due early next week.