Nearly 40 years after his professional debut, and 19 years after he retired, 58-year-old Mike Tyson will climb back into the ring on Friday for a Netflix-backed fight that has drawn widespread condemnation across the boxing world.

Tyson, who terrorized the heavyweight division during an imperious reign in the late 1980s, puts on the gloves again to take on Youtuber Jake Paul, 27, in an officially sanctioned fight at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington . ,Texas.

The fight, which will consist of eight two-minute rounds, was initially scheduled to take place in July but was postponed in May after Tyson required medical treatment on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles after vomiting blood due to a bleeding ulcer.

This bloody mid-air emergency has provided a new piece of ammunition for the many critics who have condemned Friday’s bout as a macabre circus act that poses an unacceptable risk to Tyson, who last graced a professional ring in 2005, when he was defeated via technical knockout after being stopped on his stool against Irish journeyman Kevin McBride.

– ‘This shouldn’t happen’ –

“Twenty years ago, Mike Tyson quit boxing and got shot to pieces, right? I mean, completely shot,” prominent British fight promoter Eddie Hearn said this week.

“If anyone thinks Mike Tyson should be in a ring at this age, you either have absolutely no emotional feelings towards the man or you’re an idiot. That shouldn’t happen.”

Hearn’s rival promoter Frank Warren echoed those sentiments.

“Mike Tyson is 58 years old and he shouldn’t be fighting,” Warren said after the fight was announced. “It’s that simple.

“Anyone with an ounce of brain knows it’s ridiculous. You can be in a traffic jam on a highway and you get to the end of it and it’s just people who have stopped to watch an accident – ​​and that’s what this is.”

Tyson, who according to US reports will be paid around $20 million for Friday’s bout, has dismissed concerns about his well-being and insisted boxing critics are motivated by jealousy.

“I’m beautiful, that’s all I can say,” he said earlier this year. “The people who said that wish they were here. No one else can do this.”

During an open training session in Texas this week, Tyson declared that a grueling training camp had left him convinced “that I’m stronger than I thought I was.”

“When I agreed to this fight and started training, I thought, ‘What was I thinking?’ But I’ve completed the process. The fight is the party.

At a final press conference in Texas on Wednesday, a stony-faced Tyson pointedly refused to join in the pre-fight hype.

“I’m just ready to fight,” he said. “I’m looking forward to fighting.”

– Fear of injury –

A global audience of several million people watching on Netflix, and tens of thousands at AT&T Stadium, will tune in Friday to see if Tyson’s hard work pays off.

His opponent Paul – who was born six months before Tyson bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear during their infamous 1997 rematch – rose to fame as a YouTuber before turning his attention to boxing.

Since his first fight against a fellow YouTuber in 2018, Paul’s opponents have included a basketball player, mixed martial arts fighters and other professional boxers. In 11 fights he has won 10 (seven by knockout) and lost one.

“I feel very good, sharp, powerful and explosive. It will be a short evening for Mike,” Paul said on Tuesday during the open training, where he appeared with a bizarre headdress in the shape of a rooster.

It goes without saying that a top Tyson from the eighties would almost certainly have dealt with Paul within a few minutes.

Does he retain enough remnants of the talent and destructive power that made him the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986, at the age of twenty years and four months? Bob Arum, the legendary 92-year-old boxing promoter who has seen it all, is unequivocal.

“The answer is no,” Arum told Secondsout.com last month. “A 58-year-old man, no matter how good he was, no matter how athletic he was, is not going to be able to fight.

“You can’t punch like you’re supposed to, you can’t do a lot of things. I hope Mike doesn’t get hurt, but I really don’t give him a chance relatively speaking.”

rcw/sev