Mike Tyson vs. Floyd Mayweather shows boxing’s biggest draws aren’t even pro boxers anymore

Boxing isn’t the sport your relatives once told you about.

Your grandfather’s game had Muhammad Ali, who moved beyond the ropes and rewrote what it meant to be an athlete, a man and a cultural icon. Your father had the fire of Roberto Duran firmly in his eyes, the polish of Sugar Ray Leonard on TV, and then the violent rise of Mike Tyson that shattered the box office.

But what about you, and what about me, looking into the sport now, in 2025?

Outside of legitimate pro fights, which have become increasingly rare, we’re left with a gallery of legends from yesteryear, YouTubers and Misfits.

I’ll always be the first to admit that I’ve enjoyed Jake Paul’s chaos. I don’t mind a circus when the tent is big enough to hold it. Paul’s rise has had its charms, and I’ve written before in these columns that, for me, he’s the ultimate American success story.

Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor didn’t damage the sport either, because, if anything, it gave us a glittering sideshow that sat comfortably alongside the real thing. No belts were frozen, and no divisions were stalled. The sport moved on.

And as for Misfits, well, they have carved needed space for UFC exiles like Darren Till, who looked reborn when he tore through Luke Rockhold with sharp, clean hands Saturday in England. And they deliver extraordinary numbers on DAZN, according to one Uncrowned source with knowledge of the data.

But here’s the problem: the crossover fights are no longer restricted to the sidelines. The outsiders have seized the stage. The circus is now the show.

When Tyson fought Paul last year, 108 million viewers tuned in globally, according to a statement from Paul’s company Most Valuable Promotions sent to Uncrowned at the time.

Tyson and Mayweather, between them, hold nine of the ten biggest-selling pay-per-views in boxing history. You can bet their exhibition — no matter how it’s packaged — will generate absurd numbers. And that’s precisely why their apparent fight, announced Thursday, is happening next year despite gaps in age and weight.

Mike Tyson, 59, has signed on for another circus fight that will most likely do numbers.

(Al Bello via Getty Images)

The marquee dates of 2025 and 2026 don’t just belong to the sanctioned champions like Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford, as Tank Davis against Jake Paul and, now, Tyson vs. Floyd Mayweather are both shows that expose pro boxing’s flaws.

All six aforementioned names could fill history books on their own merit. They are men who’ve been faces of the sport, if not for an era, then at least for a moment.

But here, in the present tense, they don’t belong together.

They shouldn’t belong together.

Yet they do.

And now the sideshow outnumbers the legitimate side of the sport.

Exhibitions and crossovers have lapped what was left of the competition. The pro side of boxing has been downgraded, and it has only itself to blame.

While Jake Paul strolls through former MMA champions, dances with Tyson for 10 rounds, and dares himself into a showdown with Tank, the actual sport throws uppercuts at its own chin, and stumbles over its own feet, clueless.

Where is Canelo vs. David Benavidez?

Where is Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury?

Where is Shakur Stevenson vs. Tank Davis?

Those were the fights that should have carried the banner in 2025 — if not years before. Instead, they’re ghosts. And ghosts don’t sell tickets.

Tyson, Mayweather, Paul and the Misfits are all just doing their jobs and the blame for boxing’s ongoing demise is not their doing. Far from it. They’re not betraying boxing, or bringing it into disrepute. They’re doing what they’re supposed to — entertain. They find demand for their events and then supply it.

The real failure here lies with pro boxing’s continued inability to book the best bouts when they’re at their hottest, when fan-demand was truly there.

Imagine a year when boxing finally got it all right.

Netflix-worthy Tyson vs. Floyd, yes — but alongside AJ vs. Fury attracting 90,000 at Wembley to finally deliver their long-overdue Battle of Britain; a fight that should have helped define the heavyweight era, but instead has become a running joke of delays. This, together with Canelo-Benavidez electrifying Las Vegas, where the undefeated Mexican monster finally confronts the country’s biggest boxing star in a passing of the torch denied to fight fans for years. Then, finally, Shakur–Tank turning Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center into a raucous cauldron with a fight that pits the defensive wizard against the knockout king — a generational clash that should have already crowned America’s biggest boxing star today.

That’s a calendar that would honor the ghosts and satisfy the living, a blend of pure boxing and pure spectacle. It would be a sport that spans TikTok timelines and purist roundtables alike, with broadcasters tripping over themselves to invest.

Instead, the very people meant to hold those doors open are the ones watching them close. Premier Boxing Champions, Top Rank and their rivals keep missing the moment, leaving the spectacle to do the heavy lifting.

The Tyson-Floyds of the world are not robbing boxing — they’re rescuing its visibility, while the “real” side of the sport keeps on swinging, and missing. Once it was Ali, Leonard, Duran and Tyson. Now it’s Tyson vs. Mayweather, Tank vs. Paul, and, outside of Canelo vs. Crawford, very little else.

Let’s remember: It’s not the exhibitions that are killing the sport here.

No. Not when boxing is the one killing itself.