Dana White had no problems admitting that “Mike Tyson was right and I was wrong” about yesterday’s Jake Paul fight. ‘The Problem Child’ skated to a unanimous decision victory at the end of their eight-round contest without any trouble, and even admitted to holding back in the latter rounds.

However, at the UFC 309 post-fight press conference, the UFC CEO claimed his concerns for Mike Tyson had been a bit misplaced in the end. White, of course, has been very good friends with the champ for a long time, and considers him one of his heroes. In fact, the Las Vegas resident came into combat sports primarily because of ‘Iron Mike’.

Predictably, White was worried about Tyson’s health and the damage he may take in a fight. The UFC CEO had actually even tried to dissuade Tyson from fighting boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. in an exhibition back in 2020. But his attempts to get Tyson to do something else almost ended in disaster with the infamous ‘Shark Week’ incident.

“You guys know the whole story about Shark Week. And if you don’t, I begged him not to do the Roy Jones fight, ‘[You’re] too old, I love you, I don’t want to see you take any more punishment,'” he said.

But, the whole thing took a left turn on the last day as Tyson was set to enter the ocean and actually swim with sharks. “So I set him up on Shark Week, he got paid good money and he’s like ‘F**k it.’ So he almost flipped out last day, he was ready to kill everybody on the boat ‘cuz he had to jump in with all these sharks again in the middle of Florida.”

Predictably, ‘Iron Mike’ blamed Dana White for this and felt he had been wronged by White, who he felt had put him in danger. [Tyson was] like ‘this f***ing a**hole [Dana White] says he cares about me, I’ve been fighting since I was twelve. And he throws me in the ocean with a bunch of sharks,'” White added before admitting “He was right about that too.” The UFC CEO then explained further just why he was wrong, and defended the event against criticism.

Dana White declared Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul a success

White told reporters how he had tried to dissuade Tyson from taking the Paul fight because of his advanced age, and the very real risks to his long-term health. However, the former heavyweight champ was supremely confident and didn’t feel like Paul was a threat to him.

“He’s [Tyson’s] like ‘do you honestly think this f***ing kid is gonna do anything to me? He’s not good, he’s not gonna f***ing knock me out.'” In the end, White felt that Tyson was indeed right. Even though ‘Iron Mike’ has a bevy of health issues, including mobility issues since he has virtually no knees, the UFC CEO thought Tyson gave a good account of himself, all things considered.

“And you saw it, he tripped when he was walking down the thing, had a hard time walking up the stairs, had a knee brace on. And Jake Paul couldn’t do anything to him,” White said.

Of course, the Tyson-Paul fight was quite lackluster and Tyson clearly was in no condition to fight. This, predictably led to many fans being upset at the whole thing. But, the UFC CEO pointed out that “you didn’t pay for it.” 

After all, the fight was broadcast on Netflix to all of its global subscribers and was not on PPV. Tyson reportedly made $20 million, while Paul’s reported purse was $40 million. Netflix, too, saw an astounding 60 million viewers tune in to the fight, making their first foray into combat sports a roaring success.

The Power Slap founder felt that the fight had achieved its objective, since everyone involved made a lot of money, almost entirely due to Tyson being involved. “He was right and I was wrong,” White concluded. What do you think about Dana White’s take on the Tyson-Paul fight?