Mike Tyson, the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion who recently recovered from a stomach ulcer, will face 27-year-old YouTuber-boxer Jake Paul in a boxing match Friday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. .

With an eye-watering $40 million up for grabs in the fight’s wallet and no title belts on the line, the showdown, which has been sanctioned by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, has drawn condemnation from the boxing community for being a product of the celebrity culture that some say devalues ​​the art of this sport.

Friday’s match marks the latest in a string of recent unorthodox matches involving celebrities and former professionals.

How did we get to a point where a former professional recovering from ill health is pitted against a man 31 years his junior in a boxing ring – potentially drawing millions of viewers around the world?

When did the celebrity boxing craze start?

The concept of a celebrity boxing match has been around for decades, but until recently was limited to charity events and short-lived new TV shows.

The quality and intensity of these matches varied enormously, from an unexpectedly feisty 2002 clash between British comedians Ricky Gervais and Bob Mortimer to a tepid but symbolic 2015 fight between US Senator Mitt Romney and five-time world heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield.

In 2017, then-UFC lightweight champion Conor McGregor broke convention when he fought boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr in a crossover fight billed as ‘The Money Fight’.

Mayweather was guaranteed $100 million and McGregor $30 million for the fight. Non-disclosure agreements kept the final payouts from being published, but reports from the fighters’ camps afterwards suggest that the payouts were much higher than expected.

That same year, an amateur boxing event in London pitted YouTube influencers against each other with a headline fight between KSI – a 31-year-old British influencer and musician, and Joe Weller, 28, also a British influencer and musician.

That started a trend for Jake Paul, who made a name for himself by posting prank videos online, facing KSI the following year and then against Mayweather in a 2021 exhibition match.

Why do celebrities and ex-professionals want to enter the ring?

Jake Paul has been clear about his priority: money.

“I’m here to make $40 million and take out a legend,” he told a news conference in August.

Friday’s bout will be broadcast exclusively on the streaming service Netflix, a move that has increased payouts in blockbuster professional boxing matches.

For example, undisputed heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has earned approximately $45 million from his last fight against British boxer Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia in May.

It will certainly mark a significant increase from Paul’s last fight against British boxer Tommy Fury, in which Paul took home around $3.2 million, according to reports.

Duke McKenzie, a former British boxer who has won world titles in three weight classes, told Al Jazeera that unlike Paul, Tyson’s motivation is likely not just money.

“It’s his ego, nothing more, nothing less,” he said adamantly.

Tyson could find many other ways to make money, including using his fame to promote products, indicating that the former boxer is driven by a desire to relive past glories, McKenzie said.

The fight was originally scheduled for July 20, but was postponed after Tyson suffered a flare-up of a stomach ulcer.

This condition, combined with his age, has McKenzie concerned that the former champion is putting his ego before his health, he said.

“What we’re looking at is an old, shock-worn warrior who unfortunately still wants to relive his past.

“I wish he could leave the sport with his head held high, but his ego doesn’t allow that.”

What else is fueling the craze for celebrity boxing?

In 2023, the trend of celebrity fights reached a new level when Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla founder and owner of social media platform

Musk announced on his own platform that, after talks with the Italian Prime Minister and Minister of Culture, “they have agreed on an epic location,” adding, “everything in camera frame will be ancient Rome.”

Although the match never materialized, the episode demonstrated how popular the concept had become.

“The process of becoming extremely wealthy is a cutthroat competition that unleashes a kind of hyper-masculinity,” Caroline Knowles, sociologist and Global Professorial Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera.

She said that same drive – an intense desire to succeed in the business world – lends itself to entering the same demanding, competitive world of martial arts.

In her book Serious Money: Walking Plutocratic London, Knowles studied the behavior of London’s super-rich.

She said that during her research she discovered that activities that most people would have considered hobbies would be taken much more seriously by people in the hyper-competitive world of multi-millionaires and billionaires.

She recalled talking to Russian oligarchs who were interested in mountain climbing, always “trying to push the envelope” and competing to see who could reach the highest peaks in the world.

Knowles added that the hubris of belonging to a wealthy elite can make a person believe he can do anything, including stepping into an octagonal cage or fighting a former professional boxer.

What does this mean for boxing?

From a business perspective, McKenzie says, celebrity matchups generate both money and interest in boxing, but this has “devalued” the sport because the standards of the fighters do not “represent real boxing.”

It’s an opinion echoed by many in the boxing world.

“If I were Jake Paul I’d feel a bit embarrassed, to be honest,” Eddie Hearn, one of the sport’s best-known promoters, told BBC Sport in October.

“This is dangerous, irresponsible and, in my opinion, disrespectful to the sport of boxing,” Hearn added.

McKenzie runs his own boxing gym and estimates that 80 percent of the men who sign up for it “would love to be Jake Paul.”

“Everyone who comes to me thinks they can become a champion after three or four fights,” he said.

He added that Paul’s fast, ‘big money’ route to fighting, however, belies the hard work and mental and physical battle in practice that boxers have to put into their craft.

“The reality is that to be a boxer it takes a certain mentality. “I remember getting up at 5am, running 10 miles on an empty stomach and then being at the gym by 2am,” he said.

Why are celebrity boxing matches sanctioned?

There are multiple international sanctioning bodies in boxing, resulting in over 100 titles up for grabs and creating a complicated series of multiple world champions in different weight categories.

There are four major organizations that sanction boxing matches: the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Council (WBC), the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and the World Boxing Organization (WBO).

However, for those with a passing interest in the sport, the system can seem confusing, and the importance of a single belt can be diluted when there are so many in the mix.

The confusion has increased the appeal of a blockbuster match between two big names, experts say.

Celebrity boxing matches, which do not involve rankings or titles, only need to be sanctioned by the boxing committee of the governing body where the event is held – in the case of Tyson vs. Paul, the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

Although McKenzie says he sees the sheer number of titles up for grabs as a problem in boxing, he still sees social media as the ultimate driving force behind this latest craze.

He doubts the fight would ever have been sanctioned before the age of social media – but now the glamor and money it can bring to the sport has irreparably changed the landscape.

He fears someone like an aging Tyson or an inexperienced Paul will be seriously injured before the appeal of celebrity boxing fades.

The fight will take place on Friday, November 15, with the event kicking off at 7:00 PM local time (16:00 GMT November 16).