On Friday evening, two boxers entered the ring at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. One of them is among the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time, the ‘worst man in the world’, ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson. The other is Jake Paul, a millennial influencer who built his career on prank videos, made bad music and terrorized his neighbors.

You might reasonably wonder what odds the internet’s most annoying star, a cruiserweight, has against Tyson; you might also reasonably wonder how a 58-year-old, no matter how practiced, could beat a man 31 years younger. But if you focus too much on the mechanics of boxing or athletics in general, you’re missing the point. If the entire audience wanted to watch the best boxers in the world fight each other, those matches would probably have a lot more hype. Instead, the lion’s share of attention is focused on the flood of influencers-turned-boxers who invent feuds with each other and settle them with their fists.

Paul and Tyson now find themselves in this much newer realm of the world’s oldest sport: celebrities whose controversial pasts provide ammunition to a public that has strong feelings about both. Although Friday’s match is a professional match (meaning it will be regulated by a sanctioning body, will rely on their records and can be bet on, at least in certain states), it will be more spectacle than sport. Organized by Paul’s promotional company, Most Valuable Promotions, and Netflix, which will stream the match live, it is also part of the streaming service’s attempt to reach young male viewers and the advertisers who want to woo them.

The competition is expected to be a ratings hit, thanks in part to Netflix’s estimated 282 million subscribers, the largest of any platform. Originally scheduled for July, the bout was postponed until November after Tyson developed an ulcer during a flight. Paul was already a favorite to win due to his age and recent record (10 wins, one loss and seven knockouts), but now the betting odds are even more in his favor, currently sitting at minus-210, per BetMGM Sportsbook.

Tyson’s participation has sparked controversy: Eddie Hearn, one of the industry’s biggest promoters, told ESPN that he will not support the fight due to the danger it could further cause to Tyson’s health. “That was the moment when they (MVP) should have realized that this was actually a bad idea,” he said of the ulcer. “You just have to talk to him and look at him to know that this man should not be in the ring anymore. … If I were Jake Paul, I’d be a little embarrassed, to be honest. … This is dangerous, irresponsible and, in my opinion, disrespectful to the sport of boxing.”

However, Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Most Valuable Promotions, insists it will be a fair fight. “Paul has never been beaten by someone like Mike Tyson,” he told ESPN. ‘So people can say about the danger to Mike Tyson that he is older. What about the danger for Jake Paul, who has never fought at this weight? He’s never been with a real heavyweight in his career. You could say it to both parties.”

It’s worth asking: what’s in it for everyone involved? Paul has made his incentives explicit: “I’m here to make $40 million and take out a legend,” he said at a press conference in August (Paul’s net worth is reportedly about $80 million). According to reports, Tyson will earn about half of that, which is double his reported net worth of $10 million. In addition to the payout, Paul made a video announcing that he would pay Tyson $5 million if Tyson lasts more than four rounds. If that doesn’t work, Tyson will have to get a tattoo that says: ‘I love Jake Paul.’ (Tyson responded in an interview that he would only agree to another $20 million.)

As for Tyson, it’s another attempt to get back into the spotlight in a career full of them. “This fight is not going to change my life financially,” he told LadBible. “I seek my glory.” After his release from prison in 1995, he fought in a series of comeback matches, including one with Evander Holyfield, who he would later bite in both ears in one of the most controversial moments in sports history. In the mid-2000s, with his $300 million earnings squandered and bankrupt, Tyson announced a series of exhibition fights to “get out of this financial quagmire,” he said at the time, though it was canceled after just one fight. Tyson last fought in a 2020 exhibition bout against world heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. from 2003, and now runs a successful cannabis company.

Netflix has focused heavily on live events in the past year. In January, it acquired the rights to WWE’s Rawand earlier this year it live-streamed the SAG Awards for the first time, as well as other live events like the Roast Tom BradyJoey Chestnut’s Labor Day hot dog eating contest and John Mulaney’s talk show. Two NFL games will be streamed on Christmas Day.

Rich Greenfield, a partner at LightShed Ventures who analyzes the streaming space, says it could be a “powerful tool” in the company’s bids for advertisers. “If you’re going to be in advertising, the power of something that needs to be watched at that moment and that brings millions of people together is really important to advertising,” Greenfield said. Instead of buying up the streaming rights of, say, all the major sports organizations or major awards like the Oscars or Grammys, Netflix’s strategy seems to be creating smaller, less precious moments in themselves. “Netflix already has the subscribers. Now it’s about creating unique events to drive ad sales,” says Greenfield.

These advertisers are looking for a core group: men, especially young men who pay attention to influencers like Paul. These young men do not necessarily follow boxing, but they do find recognizable faces appealing. As Brady Brickner-Wood explained in the New York Times Magazine last year, “Influencer boxers know something boxing purists don’t: that a fight without a story, no matter how poetic the execution, is just a hollow technical exercise.” No doubt there’s also another draw for viewers who know, but don’t necessarily like, Paul and his ilk: “When you buy a Jake Paul fight, part of what you’re buying is the chance to punch him in the face Kelefa Sanneh wrote in the New Yorker last year.

In anticipation of the fight, Netflix has released a three-episode docuseries following Tyson and Paul as they prepare for the fight. Of course, it’s purely marketing: the nastier elements of Paul and Tyson’s past are glossed over. It doesn’t mention the fact that Tyson was convicted in 1992 of raping an 18-year-old for which he served three years in prison, or that he was recently indicted for raping another woman in 1990. It doesn’t mention the fact that he allegedly physically abused his ex-wife, actress Robin Givens; a biography reports that Tyson admitted to punching her, calling it “the best punch I ever threw in my life.” Instead, the series shows a few clips of Tyson in handcuffs, while the voiceover refers to “his life continues to spiral downward.” (Paul was also fined for promoting crypto fraud and has been accused of sexual assault by fellow influencer Justine Paradise and model and actress Railey Lollie.)

Instead, viewers will discover that the idea for the match came from an ayahuasca ceremony Paul attended in Costa Rica, where he had a vision of himself fighting Tyson. Paul is then shown meditating and repeating to himself, “I, Jake Joseph Paul, will knock out and defeat Iron Mike Tyson.” He then contacted Tyson, who, according to Paul, enthusiastically agreed.

In one of the opening scenes, the docuseries asks, “Why fight when you have all the fame and money in the world?” The answer, of course, is that no amount of fame and money will ever be enough for people who commit their lives to such things. To be a celebrity in 2024, you must understand that the world moves on the moment people scroll away from your face, that your unique role is to produce an ever-increasing mountain of content so that your face might can find again. Although Paul and Tyson occupy completely different places in modern pop culture, they both understand that fame and money may be the only things worth punching in the face.