Netflix’s highly anticipated heavyweight fight between boxing legend Mike Tyson and YouTube superstar Jake Paul ended up disappointing millions due to the incessant buffering issues that plagued the livestream. While Jake Paul was awarded victory by decision after 8 rounds of fighting (during which time Mike Tyson only landed 18 punches), it appears pretty clear that the real winner of this fight was … Sydney Thomas?!?
Sydney Thomas, a 20-year-old student at the University of Alabama, first caught the eyes of many during Thursday’s weigh-in. As a calculated bit of pre-fight hype, Mike Tyson dramatically slapped Jake Paul, but horndogs everywhere had their sights focused elsewhere. Namely, at the blonde standing smiling just behind Tyson during this viral moment.
Pretty quickly after the weigh-in, the Barstools of the world had identified the Sydney Sweeney lookalike as Thomas, a 20 year-old model/influencer, who was hired by a production company called Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) to serve as one of the event’s ring girls.
Thomas was prominently featured on camera throughout the evening, starting during the undercard matches, and those killing time on social media while Netflix’s livestream kept crashing instantly took notice; as you might expect, most of the comments are too lewd to repeat here. Yet, as the old saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad press so long as they spell your name right. Thomas’s social handles (@iamsydneythomas on TikTok, @iamsydneythomas on Instagram) quickly started blowing up; just in the time that we’ve been writing this article, her Instagram handle has grown from 321,000 followers to 335,000.
So, where will Sydney Thomas be next? She’s not saying quite yet, but if the Hawk Tuah girl can turn 15 seconds of viral infamy into a six figure podcast deal — coincidentally, the Talk Tuah podcast is hosted by Jake Paul’s media company Betr — we can only imagine the world has not seen the last of Sydney Thomas.
