Oh Mikey boy!

I’m sorry I cannot call you “Big Mike” anymore. You just lost that title after that fight you just had with Jake Paul.

Don’t get me wrong. I still respect you - you are still that man who had multiple championships before. But it is not “RESPECT”, it is more like “respect”. There is a difference.

You see.. I will still call you big. But this time it will just be a mere adjective. Not a title as in “Big Mike” but as referring to your size as in “big Mike”.

With just one fight, you destroyed my narrative about you. I always talked about loving the sport for the sake of sport itself, not for money or fame, while giving examples of you.

I always told people to focus on being prepared for what’s coming next, giving examples from your training and matches.

I always advocated for “not pulling punches”, “going all the way in” or “being loyal to the sport”, by giving examples of you.

But now I see that I’ve made a grave mistake.

You pulled your punches for what exactly? For money? Don’t you think you could have earned that money after winning the fight and advocating for doing what’s right in front of an audience?

Hell.. You could have won the fight, then write a book titled “How I couldn’t betray the sport I love and broke the contract in the middle of the fight?” and sell it to 20 Million people for $5. You could have earned more money.

Maybe it would be in a longer timeframe.. But eventually you would be there big guy.

Or let’s say Jake is a winner. Don’t you think a story about how Mike never let go despite being crushed would mean more and earn more than 20Mil?

Frankly, I expected two scenarios out of this fight: either you win fair and square or you lose with a broken nose, black eyes, contusion, but doing the same to Jake too.

But no! You had to pull your punches. You just had to. You didn’t move. You just stood there while the other guy destroyed your reputation in the eyes of people like me. People who identified certain human characteristics within the frame of you. People who watched the fight frame by frame just to see a shred of fighting instinct. But no!

Sorry big Mike. You might have earned big bucks, but you destroyed everything I believed about you. If I’d continue to call you “Big Mike”, then I would destroy everything I believe about confrontation, which is out of question.

Some of us still believe in something more than money.