On November 15, the fight none of us asked for will take place on Netflix between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium. In promotion of the event, Netflix released the first two episodes of the three-part docuseries Countdown: Paul vs. Tyson, showing a behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to the bout. It didn’t take long before Paul was knocked out by Tyson…sort of.
Within the first six minutes of the docuseries, before we see more than 10 seconds of Paul throwing punches—and after watching Tyson pummel his trainer’s protective vest—we see Paul endure a fate he’s too young to have seen anyone else suffer: blowing on a Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out NES cartridge, hoping it will work. He unironically remarks that his failed attempts to tap the rust off of the ancient console to play the game “teaches you gratitude, kids, for the consoles we have today,” as if his life experiences are that far removed from the children he addresses. After a few bangs, TV screen taps, and surely some silent prayers to the Nintendo gods, the game starts, and Paul quickly experiences a simulation of what will likely happen when he steps into the real ring with the real Tyson—Iron Mike is nothing to fuck with.
The first taste of digital Tyson’s overpowered uppercut makes Paul acknowledge he needs to improve his speed and reaction time just before he lets out a frustrated yell after Tyson’s first-round knockout. Then, he was knocked out again. And again. And again. Paul intimated in the episode that Tyson’s boxing prowess only exists to his generation in the myth-building knockout compilations on YouTube, underscoring the generational divide that both makes this fight unnecessary and intriguing. Punch-Out gave him a small taste of just how unbeatable Tyson was in his prime—and maybe a glimpse into his future.
Punch-Out was released in America in October 1987, two months after he became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion, boasting a 31-0 record and striking fear in boxers trained to destroy people. He was a nightmare in the ring; Punch-Out made him a terror in everyone’s lives. The speed of his punches in the game were coupled with an infamously dangerous upper cut that was almost always a surefire knockout. People videotaped themselves beating Tyson just to prove to people they did it, like they were trying to prove Big Foot exists. There are Reddit threads as recent as 2023 of grown humans who still haven’t figured out how to beat 8-bit Tyson. The baddest man on the planet was once the hardest boss to beat in a game.
Admittedly, 58-year-old Tyson is a Jake Paul lifetime removed from his former boxing dominance and had to postpone this very fight with Paul after a health scare. While Gen Z and younger generations’ thirst for idol dismantling is palpable, there are older crowds who’ll watch the petulant troublemaker struggle to escape the first round in Punch-Out and hope real-life Tyson can duplicate his video game exploits one last time to give Paul the knockout he deserves.
The final Countdown episode streams on Netflix on November 12. Countdown narrator (and serial check chaser) Ice-T asks a question in the docuseries that kept repeating in my mind while watching Paul struggle against Punch-Out Tyson: “Why are both of them here demanding our attention at all?”
No matter the answer, I just wish they didn’t.
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