(Updated with more details) Netflix‘s much hyped and much delayed live fight tonight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul is taking some hits even before the former heavyweight champion and the YouTuber turned boxer have climbed in the ring.
From nearly the start of the undercard bouts from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the streamer has been freezing, losing sound and proving slow to reload. While not totally crashing as Netflix did when Luke Cage launched on the streamer in October 2016, the audio on the feed cut out over and over and the quality of the image was reduced to smeared pixels repeatedly.
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Across the country, fight fans have taken to social media to air their grievances — to put it politely.
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“This live stream from #Netflix is horrendous, wrote @Cali_Baba on X/Twitter early on in the multi-fight. “Buffering on and off, pixelated image, muffled sound,” he said in complaints that were common Friday. “They wanted the big event, and they are fumbling it. If I had purchased a subscription for this event, I would demand a refund first thing tomorrow.”
Tonight’s fights were the most ambitious live sports event the Ted Sarandos and Greg Peter’s run Netflix has ever undertaken. Yet, with all the issues customers were encountering, the streamer had no comment on the technical difficulties when contacted by Deadline.
Still, Jerry Jones kind of said it all for many when the Dallas Cowboys owner’s microphone died in the 80,000 and more packed stadium and online as he was praising working with Netflix. As well as soon to be the multi-year home of WWE‘s Monday Night Raw, Netflix will be showing live NFL games on Christmas Day.
As #NetflixCrash and #unwatchable were trending online, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy went for the less is more critique.
The feed of one of Barstool Sports’ hosts also summed up what a lot of fight fans were feeling at home.
In the lead-up to 58-year-old Tyson and 27-year-old Paul putting up their dukes in the former’s first professional-ist fight in almost 20 years, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano are battling it out for IBF, WBA, WBC, and WBO titles. While Paul is seen as the favorite against the man known as Iron Mike, Serrano is viewed as having the advantage over the Irish fighter in their rematch after that 2022 headliner at Madison Square Garden.
In that vein, digital stumbles and all notwithstanding, tonight’s fight certainly felt like the classic Tyson matches of the 1980s and 1990s — at least in terms of format.
Like HBO matches of years past, Netflix’s coverage of the match had a lot of self promotion with Squid Game and Cobra Kai cameos and promos getting airtime, and stars like Furoisa herself Charlize Theron, Joe Jonas, NBA legend Shaq O’Neil and NFL legend Rob Gronkowski ringside. Going true old skool, the streamer cut to locker room interviews with Paul and Tyson, including one lingering shot of the latter walking away with his rear on display in a jockstrap. We could have done without that butt shot there,” said Do The Right Thing star Rosie Perez a.k.a “First Lady of Boxing” in her commentary alongside Cedric the Entertainer and others.
For some that shot was frozen, on their screens and in their minds.
Or as Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav so perfectly put it:
Glenn Garner contributed to this report