“I Begged Him” – Dana White Forced to Eat His Own Words on Jake Paul & Mike Tyson

Dana White had no problems admitting that “Mike Tyson was right and I was wrong” about yesterday’s Jake Paul fight. At the UFC 309 post-fight press conference, the UFC CEO recalled how he had been opposed to Tyson fighting Roy Jones Jr. in 2020, and the whole Shark Week fiasco.

“You guys know the whole story about Shark Week. And if you don’t, I begged him not to do the Roy Jones fight, ‘[You’re] too old, I love you, I don’t want to see you take any more punishment,'” he said.

But, the whole thing took a left turn on the sets. “So I set him up on Shark Week, he got paid good money and he’s like ‘F**k it.’ So he almost flipped out last day, he was ready to kill everybody on the boat ‘cuz he had to jump in with all these sharks again in the middle of Florida.”

Nov 15, 2024; Arlington, Texas, UNITED STATES; Jake Paul bows down to Mike Tyson during their fight at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Predictably, ‘Iron Mike’ blamed Dana White for this and felt he had been hard done by the UFC CEO. [Tyson was] like ‘this f***ing a**hole [Dana White] says he cares about me, I’ve been fighting since I was twelve. And he throws me in the ocean with a bunch of sharks,'” White added before admitting “He was right about that too.” The UFC CEO then explained further just why he was wrong, and defended the event against criticism.

Dana White declared Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul a success

White told reporters how he had tried to dissuade Tyson from taking the Paul fight because of his advanced age. However, the former heavyweight champ was unperturbed.

“He’s [Tyson’s] like ‘do you honestly think this f***ing kid is gonna do anything to me? He’s not good, he’s not gonna f***ing knock me out.'” In the end, White felt that Tyson was indeed right.

“And you saw it, he tripped when he was walking down the thing, had a hard time walking up the stairs, had a knee brace on. And Jake Paul couldn’t do anything to him,” White said.

Of course, the Tyson-Paul fight was quite lackluster and Tyson clearly was in no condition to fight. This, predictably led to many fans being upset at the whole thing. But, the UFC CEO pointed out that “you didn’t pay for it.” 

After all, the fight was broadcast on Netflix to all of its global subscribers and was not on PPV. The Power Slap founder felt that the fight had achieved its objective, since everyone involved made a lot of money, almost entirely due to Tyson being involved. “He was right and I was wrong,” White reiterated.

(More to follow)

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