Netflix says 60M households worldwide watched Paul-Tyson - ESPN

Friday night's Mike Tyson-Jake Paul showdown packed a major punch across the world.

Streaming giant Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households tuned in live to watch YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Paul, 27, cruise to a unanimous decision over Tyson, the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

In addition, Netflix said 50 million households globally watched the co-main event, which saw Katie Taylor retain her undisputed women's lightweight championship with a controversial unanimous decision over Amanda Serrano. That number, according to Netflix, likely would make the fight the most-watched professional women's sporting event in United States history.

By comparison, the Kansas City Chiefs' 25-22 overtime victory versus the San Francisco 49ers in last season's Super Bowl averaged 123.7 million viewers across television and streaming platforms, making it the most-watched program in television history.

Netflix has 280 million subscribers worldwide.

The card marked the company's first foray into streaming a live sports event, and it wasn't seamless.

According to the website Down Detector, nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming leading up to the fight, leading many viewers to express their frustrations on social media Friday night.

«The boxing mega-event dominated social media, shattered records and even had our buffering systems on the ropes,» Netflix said Saturday.

While the Taylor-Serrano showdown proved the fight of the night, Tyson's return to the ring at age 58 had the millions of viewers logging into Netflix on a Friday night.

Both Tyson and Paul expressed thanks a day later.

«This is one of those situations when you lost but still won,» Tyson wrote on