It’s safe to say that Al Bernstein isn’t the biggest fan of celebrity boxing matches.
During his appearance on OutKick’s “The Ricky Cobb Show,” the 73-year-old broadcaster was asked his thoughts on the upcoming Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight.
“My feeling is that at the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything to the sport of boxing. Literally nothing, they’re all one-offs. I don’t buy the theory that they’re going to bring in new fans or I feel like they’re one-offs and if people want them, they’ll continue. “
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Jake Paul speaks at the Fanatics Fest press conference at the Javits Center on August 18, 2024 in New York City. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Bernstein was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012 for his work as a journalist and broadcaster. He’s been covering boxing since the 1970s, and while he may believe that celebrity boxing matches don’t add anything to the sport, they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
“We live in a society now, don’t we, if something’s marketable, it doesn’t matter what it is, it’s going to happen, right? It’s all about marketability, and that’s what this is. People seem to have an appetite for it, they’ve had an appetite for a number of these celebrity boxing matches , and you can even include MMA and boxing crossovers.”
“People, for whatever reason, want to see it, and if you can make a dollar for it in this day and age, you can have it.”
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Sportscaster Al Bernstein speaks during a press conference following the fight between WBA middleweight champion Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino on January 16, 2019 in Las Vegas. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
And who does Bernstein think will win the match between Paul and Tyson? Bernstein is not focused on that.
“In his 50s, you worry about what might happen to Tyson in this fight, to be honest. I fought Mike Tyson’s last two legitimate fights, when he lost to Danny Williams and [Kevin] McBride, and it was a long, long time ago, and he didn’t do as well as he wanted to in those fights.”
“It’s hard to imagine at this old age that he’s going to find something that he didn’t have in his last two fights 25 or 30 years ago, so I don’t know. I mean, it’s hard to imagine him being effective in this, but I just hope everybody gets out of it safely . That would be my only hope.”
Bernstein said that if Paul were a professional boxer who only faced professional boxers, he would be “a cruiserweight with a winning record but nothing special.”
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Mike Tyson, left, and Jake Paul attend a press conference in New York on Aug. 18, 2024, ahead of their highly anticipated fight in November. (Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Tyson is 50-6 with 44 knockouts in his professional boxing career. His last professional fight was on June 11, 2005, when he lost to McBride.
Paul has a 9-1 record in bouts with six of those wins coming by way of knockout.
The match between them will be played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on November 15. The match will be streamed worldwide via Netflix.
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