DALLAS — After buffering issues plagued Netflix’s Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson event, one subscriber is bringing his complaints to court with a class action lawsuit.
Florida resident Ronald “Blue” Denton filed the lawsuit in Hillsborough County, Florida, on Monday, accusing Netflix of deceptive trade practices and breach of contract.
The lawsuit quips that instead of watching Paul take on Tyson, who’s nicknamed “The Baddest Man on the Planet,” viewers experienced “The Baddest Streaming on the Planet.”
“Netflix delivered the first punch of the night, to its customers, with unrelenting ‘buffering’ and blocked coverage,” the lawsuit says. “The most hyped fight in boxing history turned out to be a ‘record night,’ not for the fight(s) but for the money Netflix stole.”
The Nov. 15 fight between former heavyweight champion Tyson and YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul was hosted at AT&T Stadium–the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys–and was Netflix’s biggest live sports event in its history. After eight rounds, Paul was declared the winner by a unanimous decision.
But many viewers took to social media during the match to express their frustrations, with “Unwatchable” and “#NetflixCrash” trending on X, formerly Twitter.
According to Down Detector–a website that tracks outages–nearly 85,000 people logged problems with the live stream of the event. Netflix estimated that 60 million households tuned into the bout.
Netflix representatives told The Associated Press they had no comment about the streaming issues.
Netflix has only a little turn around until its next live sports event, with the streamer scheduled to broadcast two NFL games on Christmas Day–Chiefs vs. Steelers and Ravens vs. Texans. Just last week, Netflix announced Beyoncé will be the halftime performer during the Ravens-Texans matchup in her hometown of Houston, which could add to the number of people tuning into the game.
In the new year, Netflix is also partnering with the WWE to stream “Monday Night RAW,” debuting on Jan. 6.