The hype surrounding Jake Paul’s bout against Mike Tyson—arguably the greatest boxer of his generation—quickly turned into a meme fest following a lackluster encounter which only showed how much Iron Mike had aged. Most of the jokes revolved around Paul because he fought someone more than double his age. The F1 community too, dived right in.
An F1 meme page on Instagram, @formula.joke, created a viral meme template showing Paul ready to dive into F1, with none other than Sir Jackie Stewart as his opponent.
The meme depicted Paul challenging Stewart to a one-on-one karting race. Unsurprisingly, it gained massive traction—but the fact that Stewart himself responded was truly unexpected.
Stewart, who is 85 years old, took to his Instagram account to reshare the post, and wrote, “Apparently, I need to dust off my racing overalls…” A pretty bold statement by the three-time World Champion.
Sir Jackie Stewart hilariously responds to a meme suggesting a one-v-one karting battle with Jake Paul xD pic.twitter.com/eVnQoYdE2o
— Anirban Aly Mandal (@AnirbanF1) November 17, 2024
In his fight against Tyson, Paul won in eight rounds without having to take too many hits. But would he fare the same against Stewart in moto-racing? Hopefully, for the Briton’s sake, we never know. Even though he was a force to reckon with in the 1960s and 1970s, he is certainly past his competing days.
However, in his prime, there would be no chance of Paul coming close to him. 27 Grand Prix wins, 43 podiums, and 17 pole positions in an era that also included legends like Jim Clark, Graham Hill, and Jochen Rindt—Stewart was truly one of a kind.
In all fairness, the meme-fest was bound to take over following Paul’s highly anticipated Tyson bout. He fought a 58-year-old, who had been out of competitive boxing for two decades. On the other hand, had Paul lost to Tyson, his reputation would have taken a severe hit.
