SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
A 27-year-old YouTube star and a former boxing legend stepped into the ring on Netflix last night. And the result might have surprised fans of Iron Mike Tyson, at least fans who hadn't thought too hard about the ravages of time. After Tyson's eight-round match with influencer-turned-professional-boxer Jake Paul.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Declaring your winner by unanimous decision, Jake El Gallo Paul.
DETROW: The fight between Tyson and Paul was highly hyped for months and shown live on Netflix to an international audience. But the match strained the streaming service's capacity and led some fans to complain it just felt like a well-promoted exhibition. Here to help us sort through it is NPR TV critic Eric Deggans, who did stay up late to watch this whole thing. Eric, thank you for your service.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Past 1 a.m. - the things I do for you and NPR, Scott, you know?
DETROW: Way past my bedtime these days - I mean, on one hand, we shouldn't be surprised that a 20-something fighter would beat a guy more than twice his age, but on the other hand, that guy is Mike Tyson. So what happened here?
DEGGANS: Well, that's a very good question. I mean, this was Tyson's first fight in years, and he was clearly struggling. I mean, I'm no fight expert. But except for the first few minutes of this match, Tyson looked slow. He seemed to get winded quickly. According to the stats that they put on screen after the fight ended, Tyson landed something like 18 punches in an eight-round match while Paul landed at least four times more. As I watched, it was tough to see if Tyson was holding back or Paul was trying not to hurt him. But by the time they finished, it felt like I had watched a rich kid pay a celebrity to box him during his birthday.
DETROW: (Laughter) Brutal.
DEGGANS: You could tell the announcers and analysts working the fight were disappointed, too. Let's listen to a little bit of their commentary.
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ROSIE PEREZ: Mike does not look good right now.
ROY JONES JR: Mike does not look good at all.
DETROW: Eric, was that Rosie Perez?
DEGGANS: Yes, it was. So Rosie Perez, who people mostly know as an actor from films like "Fearless" or "Do The Right Thing" - she's also a boxing superfan who people in the sport sometimes call the first lady of boxing. Now, for people who don't know boxing, maybe her presence made it seem like more of a Hollywood production, but she actually delivered a lot of great commentary and clearly knew what she was talking about. Now, if that had been the most unusual thing about the match, then Netflix would have been fine. But it wasn't.
DETROW: Right, so when I woke up this morning and was reading in on this, everybody was talking about Netflix struggling with technology. Did you experience that?
DEGGANS: Oh, yeah. I must have been kicked off the livestream more than a half a dozen times over the course of the night. The quality of the picture would get blurry with no warning. The sound would get thin then return to normal, or the picture might freeze for seconds.
And there were tech issues for the commentators. I mean, one person's microphone didn't work. Another couldn't hear. I heard what sounded like somebody from Netflix's tech crew shout the F-word in the background. They even had this moment - and it's all over social media - where they were interviewing Tyson backstage, prepping for the fight. He walks away, and you can see his naked behind. It was very, shall we say, revealing.
DETROW: So this matters, though, because Netflix has more live sports programming coming up. Does it have the capacity to do this?
DEGGANS: That is truly the billion-dollar question here. I mean, there weren't many boxing experts who expected this fight to be anything other than a money grab. Tyson reportedly made 20 million and Paul, whose company, Most Valuable Promotions, promoted the fight, claimed he made twice that.
It was also a test for whether Netflix's technology could handle big live events. Amazon streams NFL games weekly on Thursday night without a hitch. Paul said after the match that 120 million people watched on Netflix, which, if that's true, would be comparable to the viewership of the Super Bowl this year. Now, Netflix is also going to carry WWE wrestling and two pro football games on Christmas Day. And if they don't up their game fast, there are going to be a lot of disappointed sports fans up there.
DETROW: That is NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. Thank you so much, Eric.
DEGGANS: Thank you.
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