The Battle Between Us that neither of us asked for takes place on Netflix on November 15th Jake Paul and Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium. To promote the event, Netflix released the first two episodes of the three-part docuseries Countdown: Paul vs. Tyson, shows a look behind the scenes leading up to the fight. It wasn't long before Paul was knocked out by Tyson… sort of.

Within the first six minutes of the documentary, we see Paul throwing punches for more than ten seconds – and after watching Tyson pummel his trainer's body armor – as Paul suffers a fate he is too young to experience to ever see anyone else suffer: to blow on you Mike Tyson's punch-out NES cartridge, hoping it works. He remarks unironically that his failed attempts to knock the rust off the old console to play the game “teaches you, kids, gratitude for the consoles we have today,” as if his life experiences were so far removed from the kids , to whom he addresses. After a few punches, taps on the TV screen and certainly some silent prayers to the Nintendo gods, the game begins and Paul quickly experiences a simulation of what will likely happen when he gets into the real ring with the real Tyson – Iron Mike is nothing to fuck with.

The first taste of digital Tyson's all-powerful uppercut makes Paul realize he needs to improve his speed and reaction time, just before he lets out a frustrated scream after Tyson's first-round knockout. Then he fell unconscious again. And again. And again. Paul subsequently suggested that Tyson's boxing talent is reserved only for his generation in the fabled knockout compilations on YouTube, underscoring the generational divide that makes this fight both unnecessary and fascinating. Punch Out gave him a small taste of how unbeatable Tyson was in his prime – and perhaps a glimpse into his future.

Punch Out was released in America in October 1987, two months after he became the youngest undisputed heavyweight champion. He boasted a 31-0 record and struck fear into boxers trained to destroy people. He was a nightmare in the ring; Punch Out made him a terror in everyone's life. The speed of his punches in the match was coupled with a notoriously dangerous upper cut that was almost always a surefire knockout. People recorded themselves on video Beating Tyson just to prove to people that they did it, as if to prove that Big Foot existed. There are Reddit threads only in 2023 by adult humans who still haven't figured out how to defeat the 8-bit Tyson. The evilest man on the planet was once the hardest boss to defeat in a game.

Admittedly, Tyson, 58, is a lifetime away from his previous dominance in boxing and had to postpone this fight with Paul due to a health scare. While Gen Z and younger generations' urge for idol dismantling is palpable, there are older viewers who will watch as the petulant troublemaker struggles to escape the first round Punch Out and hope that in real life Tyson can repeat his video game exploits one last time to give Paul the knockout he deserves.

The finale countdown Episodes stream on Netflix on November 12th. countdown In the docuseries, narrator (and series examiner) Ice-T asks a question that kept running through my mind as I watched Paul struggle with it Punch Out Tyson: “Why are these two even demanding our attention?”

Whatever the answer, I just wish they hadn't.

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