Mike Tyson didn’t damage his legacy with big-money fight – but one old rival offers a cautionary tale

On Friday night in Dallas, Mike Tyson joined a sad list of men behaving badly in a dangerous sport and he is not bothered.

Boxing’s fallen idols have always returned to the scene of their former glory; they are men on some type of mission to discover if they have one last fight left. On Friday in Dallas against Jake Paul, Tyson was not in search of any such ridiculous truths or notions because he was back for money. And lots of it, perhaps as much as $60m (£47.5m) between them.

The giants of the ring fight on because they want to and, contrary to the simple thinking, they will not damage their reputations if they get splattered by a child-star from Disney or a novice YouTuber. There is nothing that Paul could have done to Mike Tyson on Friday night that would have in any way diminished Tyson’s boxing achievements. To believe otherwise is just lazy; Tyson’s dignity – especially the clip of his ar*e hanging out of his protector straps – took a beating, not his place in boxing history.

In recent years, Evander Holyfield and Roy Jones Jr – both genuine greats – took fights in search of one more win, one more night under the stars. Jones Jr might not be finished just yet.

In 2021, Holyfield was 58 – the same as Tyson last Friday – when he met one of the UFC’s genuine bad boys, Vitor Belfort; the fight finished at 1:49 of the first round with Holyfield falling over and looking like an old man who had misjudged a step at a care home. It was sickening to witness the stumbling and confusion from Holyfield each time he was tapped by Belfort. Holyfield’s balance was diabolical and Belfort, unlike Paul against Tyson, had no reservations about hurting the old man in front of him. It looked like Belfort wanted to damage Holyfield and it was dangerous.

Incidentally, the Belfort fight, which was paraded as an ‘exhibition’, was 35 years after Holyfield won his first world title. Thankfully, Holyfield has not fought since under any rules and against any backdrop.

The Jones Jr story is disturbing. The former middle, super-middle, light-heavyweight and heavyweight world champion appears to have no idea how far he has declined. Jones Jr is now 55, his last sanctioned fight was in late 2023 when he lost to a man making his debut. Jones Jr was 54 that night and fighting on memory and instinct. To be fair, there is a lot of memory and instinct to play with, and, at times, Jones Jr can still look like the man from the early nineties.

There were moments on Friday when Tyson looked like Tyson, but not when he was fighting.

In 2020, Jones Jr and Tyson fought an exhibition, and it was a quality spar, a good watch for purists, but not what the blood-thirsty gang wanted.

Jones Jr and Tyson showed a lot of their history in the ring, but it was most definitely a planned and schemed show. I had no problem with that; a year later the Holyfield fiasco took place and that was scary.

Jones Jr is different from Tyson and Holyfield because he never took a long break, he just kept on chasing the dream and that can hurt a boxer’s legacy. Jones Jr last won a genuine world title fight in 2003 – he has fought 26 times since then and he will be on a shortlist to fight Paul in the future. Jones Jr was part of the broadcast team for Netflix on Friday (hey, no comment on that ringside circus) and there was a sense that he fancied a bit of the Paul-pot of cash.

The crazy truth is that Jones Jr, even at 55 and after 76 fights, might just be too lively for Paul.

And finally, in the recent list of shame, there is Brixton’s Danny Williams. Sure, Williams never won a world title, but in 2004 he finished the last real ambitions of Tyson when he stopped him in four rounds. At the time, Tyson was being hyped and there was talk of one more title; Williams was a mad underdog, and it finished with Tyson sitting and bleeding on the canvas. It should have been the end, but Tyson had one more fight in 2005 and quit.

Williams lost a world title fight to Vitali Klitschko and then went on one of boxing’s craziest runs. Williams is now 51, still fighting if a call comes in from somewhere odd. In the last ten years he has fought in 11 countries; against Tyson that night in Louisville, Williams had fought 34 times, losing just three times and now his record stands at 89 fights and 33 defeats.

He is one of boxing’s lost stories. His life is at risk, his legacy forgotten forever. Tyson is an innocent man in those terms compared to Williams, but it would be nice to see them both quit for good. Please, don’t hold your breath.