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At age 58, Mike Tyson will be getting back in the boxing ring.
Mr. Tyson, the former world heavyweight champion, whose career was marred by issues in and out of the ring, will take on the social media influencer turned boxer Jake Paul on July 20 in a match that will be streamed live on Netflix, the company announced on Thursday.
The bout, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will be the first fight for Mr. Tyson since 2020, when he and Roy Jones Jr., also a former world boxing champion, fought to a draw in an exhibition match.
The event will be another step in Netflix’s aggressive push into live “sports-adjacent programming,” which has the potential to draw large audiences without the kind of investment that streaming games from professional sports leagues requires. The company recently reached a multibillion-dollar, 10-year deal for the exclusive rights to stream World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship weekly wrestling show, “Raw.”
The made-for-streaming boxing spectacle was brought about through a partnership between Netflix and Mr. Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions, the company he established in 2021 with Nakisa Bidarian to disrupt combat sports. He and Mr. Tyson will be paid about the same for the fight, but the parties would not reveal the amount.
Mr. Paul, 27, began boxing in 2018 and has seen his star rise on his way to a 9-1 record. His last fight was on Saturday night, when he stopped Ryan Bourland in the first round.
“It’s crazy to think that in my second pro fight, I went viral for knocking out Nate Robinson on Mike Tyson’s undercard,” Mr. Paul said in a statement. “Now, less than four years later, I’m stepping up to face Tyson myself to see if I have what it takes to beat one of boxing’s most notorious fighters and biggest icons.”
Mr. Tyson, who turns 58 in June, was a phenomenon right from the start of his professional career in 1985. He became a champion by the age of 20 and won his first 37 professional matches, nearly all of them by knockout. His first professional loss, to James (Buster) Douglas, remains one of the most shocking upsets in sports history.
He later faced legal troubles, serving three years in prison for rape. In the ring, his reputation was marred by erratic behavior, like biting one of Evander Holyfield’s ears during a 1997 bout.
Lately, Mr. Tyson, whose has spoken of a past addiction to cocaine, has been spending more time on his fledgling marijuana business than on his boxing career. He sells a variety of products, including gummies shaped to look like Mr. Holyfield’s ear.
Netflix’s first foray into a live sports-related event was an exhibition golf match in November that pitted athletes from its “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” series against golfers featured on its series “Full Swing.” Last weekend, it streamed an exhibition tennis match between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz.
The company is also familiar with Mr. Paul. Last year, an episode of its “Untold” documentary series centered on his transformation from YouTube celebrity to professional boxer. The episode, “Untold: Jake Paul the Problem Child,” spent one week in Netflix’s top 10 in 20 countries, including Britain.
In 2021, Mr. Paul’s older brother, Logan, fought the former boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a pay-per-view bout that Showtime sold for $49.99. The match went eight rounds, and no winner was declared.
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