Whether it was your dream matchup or your worst nightmare, the controversial boxing fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson is now firmly in the rear-view mirror.
Yet that’s not to say that combat sports veterans both past and present are finished giving their assessments of the divisive event as a whole – cue veteran sportscaster and news anchor, Jim Lampley.
Iconic US sportscaster Jim Lampley slams Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson
Jim Lampley remains one of the most well-versed and well-spoken sportscasters in the world, having worked for HBO World Championship Boxing for over 30 years between 1988 and 2018.
From calling Julio Cesar Chavez’s last-gasp TKO of Meldrick Taylor, to Mike Tyson’s shock defeat at the hands of Buster Douglas, it’s safe to say that Lampley knows his stuff. And he knows when that ‘stuff’ stinks.
“I watched [Paul vs Tyson]; I wouldn’t call it a good night for the sport of boxing, and I wouldn’t call it a bad night for the sport of boxing because, to me, it wasn’t within the sport of boxing,” Lampley lamented via The Ariel Helwani Show earlier this week.
“It was within the sport of human spectacle, it was within the sport of what social media tends to care about and glorify, it was a way of presenting what looked like a ‘boxing match’ to the public that doesn’t always tune in for meaningful or important boxing matches.”
A disheartened Lampley would acknowledge that a significant portion of the 108 million viewers who tuned in, won’t bother to make such an effort for insane fights such as Benavidez vs Morrell – which goes down this weekend live from Las Vegas.
“God only knows how many people who watched Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul, who now will not watch a spectacular and meaningful fight between David Benavidez and David Morrell.
“As a boxing lover, I want to say that’s sad. But that judgment is really irrelevant – if people want it, people are going to get it.”
The one saving grace for Lampley was the co-main event clash between Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano, which led into what the former color commentator called the latest step toward our collective demise.
“If you want to call Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul boxing, I don’t. I call it business, I call it the internet world, I call it a new step in the evolution of mankind toward our ultimate oblivion.”
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Lampley echoed the same saddened sentiment as Turki Alalshikh
Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, Turki Alalshikh, has become one of the sports’ most popular figures thanks to his incredibly deep pockets helping him put together the super-fights that fans actually want to see.
Whilst he holds no personal grudge over Paul, when speaking via Ring Magazine in December, Alalshikh would label his fight against Mike Tyson Tyson as anything but boxing.
“Boxing is not 14oz gloves, not two-minute rounds, not beating a legend at the age of your grandfather. Boxing is not like this. Do not name it boxing please. I am not against it – name it a show, entertainment, but do not name it boxing.”
Alalshikh later clarified that he likes Paul “as part of the younger generation,” but also that the social media star “needs to decide what he really wants.
“If he wants to be a real boxer, he needs to take on big fights against boxers, not treat it like a show. That’s my opinion, because it’s damaging to boxing. I know he doesn’t like this, especially what I said about his last fight. I said it wasn’t boxing, and I’m not joking.
“If he wants to continue in this field and be part of Riyadh Season, he needs to fight real boxers. That’s my opinion. If he does that, I’ll support him.”