IT’S being billed as the most bizarre fight of the century.
In the red corner is the former world undisputed heavyweight champ “Iron” Mike Tyson, 57, who was using a walking stick in footage from 2022 unearthed this week.
The ferocious former “Baddest Man On The Planet”, who retired in 2005, has released his first clip of training footage, leading fans to fear he is in trouble.
In the blue corner will be internet star Jake Paul, 27, whose fighting career includes bouts with other YouTubers, and MMA fighters.
He was beaten last year by boxer and former Love Islander Tommy Fury, younger brother of reigning WBC champion Tyson.
The fight is expected to generate £234million but has been criticised by UFC president Dana White and fighter Conor McGregor.
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The clash, which will be aired on Netflix in July, is being billed as a battle between boxing’s old guard and a new breed.
But the two boxers have more in common than than you might think – as Grace Macaskill reveals.
SEX ABUSE SCANDALS
TYSON served three years in jail for the rape of Desiree Washington when she was 18.
The victim, who was Miss Black Rhode Island at the time, said he assaulted her in an Indiana hotel room in 1991.
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An A&E doctor who examined her confirmed her injuries were consistent with being raped.
Tyson is a registered sex offender under federal law for life.
Jake Paul faced abuse allegations from two women in 2021, although no charges have been brought.
TikToker Justine Paradise, 30, released a 20 minute YouTube video claiming he forced her to perform oral sex in his bedroom in July 2019.
She alleged they danced and kissed consensually at first but then he got physical with her.
Paul denied the allegation on Twitter, calling it “manufactured” and denied he ever had a sexual relationship with Justine.
Actress and model Railey Lollie came forward shortly after Justine’s allegations.
She accused Paul of groping her without consent in 2017, according to the New York Times.
The 24-year-old alleges that when she was 17, he would call her “jailbait”.
COMEBACKS
THERE will be a lot at stake for both men when they square up.
Ageing Tyson is attempting to show the world he still has what it takes to win, while Paul wants to come back from his defeat to Tommy Fury in February.
In 1986, age 20, Iron Mike became the youngest man ever to win a world heavyweight title — but his career spiralled out of control due to sex, drink and drugs.
He hasn’t boxed since an exhibition against Roy Jones Jr in November 2020, which ended in a draw, and his last professional bout was 15 years earlier when he was beaten by Kevin McBride.
Two years ago, Tyson was pictured using a walking stick, and this week he released a training video which one fan reckoned showed he had “weak jabs”.
When Paul took on Tommy Fury in Saudi Arabia, it was one of the most anticipated-ever boxing contests between two novices.
Despite the former Love Island star being knocked down by the YouTuber in the eighth round, Tommy won on a split decision.
Paul later said: “Tommy didn’t win the fight — I lost it. I was not good, I was not on my A-game.
“I didn’t implement my game plan. My legs were weak going into the fight — but I don’t want to sit here and make excuses.”
LOVE LIVES
FROM fake weddings to a wife who cheated with Brad Pitt, the course of true love hasn’t run smooth for either man.
Iron Mike has been married three times, while Paul has staged two marriage ceremonies for his 60million-plus social media followers.
Tyson’s first marriage, to actress Robin Givens in 1988, lasted just a year.
According to the heavyweight boxer, they quickly tied the knot when Givens told him she was pregnant.
He gave her and her mum £3million to buy a New Jersey estate and put £6.5million in her bank account.
But Tyson claims Robin told him she had miscarried shortly after the money was exchanged.
They filed for divorce but carried on seeing each other — until he walked in on her having sex with Brad Pitt.
Tyson later claimed Pitt begged him not to hit him.
He said: “You had to see the look on his face. He looked like he was ready to receive his last rites.”
Givens, who admits to dating Brad, says the story is untrue.
From 1997 to 2003, Tyson was married to paediatrician Monica Turner after meeting her at a party thrown by comedian Eddie Murphy.
She visited him in prison after he was convicted of raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington — and when he was released in 1992 the pair set up home in Maryland.
Turner filed for divorce four years later, claiming adultery.
Tyson is currently married to Lakiha Spicer, 47, better known as Kiki, who met him aged 18 when they were introduced by boxing promoter Don King.
They started dating in the early noughties and married in 2009.
They exchanged vows in 2009, two weeks after the dad-of-seven’s daughter Exodus, four, choked to death in a freak accident.
Despite being obviously in love, Tyson recently admitted he has only been faithful to Kiki for the past two years of their marriage.
His wife has also had problems with the law.
You had to see the look on his [Brad Pitt’s] face. He looked like he was ready to receive his last rites
In 2008 she was given six months in federal jail for defrauding £60,000 from a company owned by her dad.
Paul faked his first wedding to fellow internet star Erika Costell in June 2017, before the pair released a song together.
Three months later he admitted the ceremony wasn’t real and they weren’t even dating.
But the next year their relationship went from staged to reality when they were filmed shopping and holding hands in his documentary The Secrets Of Jake Paul.
In 2019 Paul announced his engagement to YouTuber Tana Mongeau and they married a month later in Las Vegas.
Then they admitted that they weren’t officially married either and it was all a show.”
Paul and 28-year-old brother Logan have a fierce rivalry now the latter has also taken up boxing.
According to Jake, Logan slept with his ex-girlfriend Alissa Violet before the older sibling boasted on a music video: “She used to be your chick, now she’s on my team.”
Alissa and Paul met in 2017, when she was a singer in his manufactured band Team 10.
Both accused each other of cheating, while Alissa claimed Jake had physically and mentally abused her, which he denied.
In a now-deleted tweet, Jake accused Alissa of sleeping with Logan, writing: “Alissa f***ed my brother . . . that’s why I kicked her out. Oopsie — I just told them the truth.”
Logan then added fuel to the first in a diss track called The Fall Of Jake Paul.
DODGY PASTS
TYSON has had his fair share of drama in the ring — and outside it.
In his 2013 autobiography, Undisputed Truth, he admitted he was high on drugs during some of his fights.
He said he had taken cocaine and cannabis before a fight against Lou Savarese in Glasgow in 2000, but avoided being caught by using a “fake penis where you put in someone’s clean urine to pass your drug test.”
His lowest points came when he bit off part of opponent Evander Holyfield’s ear during a bout in 1997 and being knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas in 1990.
Tyson blew his £401million fortune on luxury cars — including a Cadillac and Lamborghini — £1.75million on a sold gold bathtub and paying a trainer £80,000 a year to look after his two pet Bengal tigers.
While Tyson can’t seem to leave his boxing career behind, Jake Paul has also been desperate for the limelight.
Paul — nicknamed “The Problem Child” — was filmed rapping the N-word to a song in 2018.
Two years later he was allegedly seen with vandals and looters during the Arizona protests against George Floyd’s death at the hands of a cop in Minnesota, although he insists he was only there to film.
The FBI raided his home in California in 2020 in relation to the incident but no charges were brought.
My life was pretty much ruined. YouTube demonetised me, every brand dropped me
Jake Paul
Paul, who is worth £31million, claimed Covid was a “hoax” and threw a huge party during the pandemic.
His brother Logan, also a social media star, was forced to deny accusations he scammed fans with his cryptocurrency game project Cryptozoo.
Jake also got flak after Logan posted an insensitive video depicting the body of a man who had hanged himself in Japan’s Aokigahara “suicide” forest.
After advertisers wanted nothing to do with either brother due to the shocking footage, Jake revealed he thought about suicide.
He said: “My life was pretty much ruined. YouTube demonetised me, every brand dropped me.
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“I’m sitting there at 21, I lost basically all my income because of something my brother did, I’m blacklisted.
“Everything in my life was falling apart. Dark thoughts come into your head of like, ‘I don’t wanna be her on earth anymore’.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
