Calling the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight experience on Netflix a dumpster fire would be offensive to large piles of garbage in flames. In fact, the only winner of the main event was Antonio Brown.
Yes, THAT Antonio Brown.
Netflix faced buffering issues all night long for scores of fans watching along, providing a nightmare scenario for the streaming sports era. And with two amazingly entertaining undercard bouts, the hype was certainly growing for the Paul-Tyson main event. If you could watch it, that is. At least it was working when we got to see way more of Mike Tyson than we bargained for.
With frozen screens and spinning wheels of doom, an unlikely hero stepped in to save the day. Former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown, who currently is trying to make “CTESPN” a thing, live streamed the Tyson-Paul fight on X from a suite in AT&T Stadium in Dallas by recording the massive JerryWorld videoboard.
Incredibly, in spite of one hiccup with the video, Antonio Brown’s feed was never taken down and as of early Saturday morning, even the replay of the stream was available to be seen. It truly is the wild west of social media over on the place formerly known as Twitter these days.
By the time Tyson and Paul were finished with their 8 round snoozefest, won by Paul via unanimous decision as if the result actually matters, an astonishing 7 million people were watching Brown’s live stream in real time. At least the ones watching on X got their money’s worth.
Somehow Netflix has a month to turn their live streaming operation around for their NFL on Christmas Day doubleheader. Because America really shouldn’t have to be in position to depend on Antonio Brown being able to make it from Pittsburgh to Houston in time to catch both Christmas Day games.