This Viral Video Proves the Conspiracy Theory That Mike Tyson Wasn't Allowed to Hit Jake Paul Hard

Sarah Stier. Getty Images.

It's a tale as old as boxing itself. As much as the public loves to watch people fight and pay good money to do so, there have always been people who love that money even more. And they want a piece of it more than they care about the sport. So they'll pay boxers to take a dive. 

In fact, fixing fights has been a theme of great boxing stories a lot more often than Rocky or Cinderella Man inspiring people with their heart and courage. It happened with Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. With Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. Luis "Mountain" Rivera in Requiem for a Heavyweight. What made the story line with Butch in Pulp Fiction:

… is that he subverted expectations by double crossing Marcellus Wallace. Only to later have to save him from rapey hillbillies. Which, for my money, are the worst kind of hillbillies. 

So when the whole world was exposed to that shambolic exhibition of boxing cosplay between Jake "Problem Child" Paul and Mike "Baddest Man on the Planet" last weekend - in which neither was a problem or bad for the other -  it was only natural they'd default to believing the fix was in. That there was some sort of agreement not to hit each other with ill intent:

Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for Netflix and anyone else who made a buck off of this, this isn't Jake LaMotta's time. This non-fight didn't happen in some LA arena near where Marcellus through Tony Rock Horror through a window for touching Mrs. Wallace's feet. This was on the internet, where every whiff, miss and pulled punch can live on forever. 

So credit to whomever gave us this little gem together, which proves beyond the tiniest shadow of a doubt the conspiracies are right:

In less than 24 hours, this one post has 6.3 million views and 42,000 likes. It's as viral as it is incontrovertible proof this was rigged to keep both non-combatants from doing any actual fighting. Tyson had Paul's exposed jaw right in his crosshairs and decided to drop his weapon at the last second. If the training videos he released over the last few months were any indication, he could've put Paul on, what used to be called in a simpler time in our culture, "Queer Street." Instead, he quite literally pulled his punch. 

There are no doubt plenty of other examples. A lot more than actual punches landed. And I'm sure they'll be posted in the days to come. But this is all the proof we need that we were had. That the whole exhibition was a bag job. Now the issue becomes what the NFL plans to do about the fact they're about to climb into Broadcast Partner bed with a company who not only can't livestream an event without it buffering and pixelating every two minutes:

… but also might have defrauded their viewing public. Good luck with that, Goodell.