Viral ring girl Sydney Thomas reveals her sports dream… and why she almost missed Jake Paul-Mike Tyson

Sydney Thomas has now revealed what her biggest sporting dream would be, a week after going viral as one of the ring girls at the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight.

Thomas plans to continue her modeling career by appearing in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

The 2025 edition of the magazine features plenty of women from the sports world.

Those gracing the magazine’s pages in swimwear include Cameron Brink, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, Gabby Thomas and Eileen Gu.

Thomas’ desire to join them one day comes with her admission that she has “contacts there,” per TMZ.

Thomas also revealed that she would have missed the event if it had taken place on the original date of July 20.

Viral ring girl Sydney Thomas has expressed her sports dream of appearing in Sports Illustrated

Thomas has had more than her 15 minutes of fame since she was a ring girl for Paul-Tyson

“They had contacted me and found me through social media for the original fight over the summer that was supposed to take place, and I was going to be in Europe if that went ahead, so I had to decline,” Thomas said.

“And I was so sad about it, and I wanted to do it so bad. But then Tyson got hurt, so they rescheduled, and in the end it came down to me still doing that fight. That’s how it worked. I didn’t request anything, but they just contacted me.”

Paul instead fought MMA star Mike Perry in July, getting a knockout, which he was unable to do against Tyson.

The ring crew of Thomas, Lexi Williams, Raphaela Milagres, Virginia Sanhouse and Delia Sylvain are considered by some to be the real winners of the Netflix mega-event.

Each of them grew their social media following in the seven days after the fight.