Dana White now believes Mike Tyson was right to step in the ring with Jake Paul aged 58.
The legendary heavyweight stunned the world as he returned in a full professional comeback fight with YouTube-turned-boxer Paul in Texas on Friday night.
It was a dull and sad spectacle with Tyson throwing limited punches in a points defeat to the lesser experienced Paul, but was able to survive being knocked out.
UFC kingpin White has strongly advised his friend and boxing icon Tyson to stay away from the boxing ring, and pull out of his fight with Paul.
But in a bizarre assessment on the fight night’s events, White claims he was incorrect and Tyson proved his decision to re-enter the sport was correct.
He said at the UFC 209 post-fight press conference: “Mike Tyson was right, and I was wrong.
“So I told him ‘Mike, you’re basically 60-years-old’ and he said ‘Do you honestly think this kid is going to do anything to me?
“‘He’s not good, he’s not going to f***ing knock me out or do this’. And you saw him, he tripped walking down the thing, had a hard time walking up the stairs and had a knee brace on.
“Then Jake Paul couldn’t do anything to him. He made a tonne of money and I know people were mad that they stayed home, but you didn’t pay for it.
“When Mike Tyson shows up, everybody makes money. Jake Paul isn’t a f***ing… I don’t have to tell you guys, you guys know.
“Mike Tyson is the A-side of that thing. He was right, Jake Paul couldn’t do s**t to him. He was right and I was wrong.”
Tyson looked a shell of himself, but avoided any serious injury or health concern by the final bell.
White tried to advise Tyson away from returning, but is happy his friend didn’t listen[/caption]
In the process he earned an anticipated $20 million purse, with the event deemed a huge commercial success.
The spectacle broke records with 60 million homes tuning in to watch the event via the first-ever broadcast of boxing on streaming service Netflix.
White believed Paul struggled against Tyson, despite scoring a unanimous shut-out win.
And ‘El Gallo’ insisted that he deliberately did not pursue a KO of Tyson to avoid him getting hurt.
He said after the fight: “There was a point where I was like he is not really engaging back.
“So I don’t know if he is tired. I can just tell his age was showing a little bit.
“I just have so much respect for him and that war thing between us after he slapped me, I wanted to be aggressive, take him down and knock him out.
“But that kind of went away as the rounds went on.
“I wanted to give the fans a show, but I didn’t want to hurt someone that didn’t need to be hurt.”
