Jake Paul, Boxer: Does Anyone Still Care?

Jake Paul is fighting this Saturday…does anyone care?

If you ask boxing purists, they’d say that they never cared about YouTuber/Influencer Paul or his hyper-hyped fledgling boxing career. Boxing purists, though, are famous for pearl clutching and for generally being stick-in-the-mud elitists.

But the Jake Paul product, in general, does seem to have grown stale. Fighting Mike Tyson, as originally scheduled for this Saturday on Netflix, would’ve freshened things up considerably, at least for the one-off event. That has been pushed back to November, however, due to some old man stomach issues with the 58-year-old former heavyweight champ. The 27-year-old Paul will now be taking his show to DAZN and charging a premium $64.99 price for a sub-premium event.

Replacement opponent Mike Perry, best known for a 5-year mid-card UFC career and a 5-0 run as a bare-knuckle boxer, hasn’t stoked the fires of interest all that much.

The Jake Paul Show, Losing Its Shine?

Paul’s last two fights before Perry have also failed in stoking any fires of interest, even among those who support the Jake Paul boxing project.

His last bout, against sub-club fighter Ryan Bourland, this past March in Puerto Rico, was a blow-out stinker with tepid promotion leading up to the event and a last-minute cancellation by the fighter everyone had actually come to see, Puerto Rico’s Amanda Serrano.

Billed as Paul’s second straight fight against a “real” boxer, the bout was really just a drubbing of an opponent with an inflated record from a weak commission state (North Dakota), who had only fought once in nearly six years and was competing at least 27 pounds above his optimal weight. The “real” boxer he fought before that, Andre August, was similarly life-handicapped, one fight removed from a four-year layoff, competing 20 lbs. over his ideal weight, with an inflated record, beefed up with opposition that sported a combined 34-65-6 record.

If one didn’t know better, it’s almost as if this whole Jake Paul thing is smoke and mirrors– beating combat sport names as a novice boxer to sell events and then a couple of very low-level boxers to prove his “legitimacy” after venturing a bit too far and losing to Tommy Fury (who, honestly, isn’t that good, himself) early last year.

To be fair, most novice boxers, ten fights into their pro careers, are fighting part-timers and fellow novices. It just so happens that Paul is beating MMA stars (and former NBA players and YouTubers) rather than truck drivers and Footlocker assistant managers.

The Real Problem With “The Problem Child”

The issue with Paul, though, is that his fame and crossover bankability (at least when stacked up against most other professional boxers), gets him taken way more seriously than other 10-fight boxers. The deference shown to him by some in the media can be a bit off-putting and it definitely creates the “I want to see him do something that warrants the attention” energy that has followed him for his entire career.

In many instance, fawning media comes off as almost patronizing in their deference, treating minor Jake Paul achievements as big deals. They seriously take it seriously when he talks about his run at a world title next year, sporting a resume consisting of a YouTuber, a retired NBA star, five retired MMA stars, a part-time boxer/reality TV star, and two undersized fall guys. It’s almost as though a baseball minor leaguer is getting World Series MVP treatment for hitting a bloop single in a regular season game. Or, maybe more correctly, it’s like organizing a block party to celebrate a 9-year-old’s little league participation trophy. One doesn’t have to be a boxing “purist” to issue an incredulous “Oh come on!”

“I see so many people saying that I made a mistake that this was really dumb of me to do,” Paul said in a recent video interview, hitting off the tee ESPN’s Andreas Hale enthusiastically set up for him. “Mike Perry is going to be the one to finish me, blah blah blah, and I just find it funny because people don’t really understand the sport of boxing. So many people from their couch, critics…they don’t really understand that I’ve slowly and slowly perfected this craft and that I actually have a ton of skill and natural god-given talent…

“And, so, even in my last two fights, finishing guys who’ve been doing the sport their whole life in basically like one-and-a-half minutes, no one’s even seen my skills for the past year and I’ve had a new team and so people don’t really know what I’m made of and I don’t even think they’re really going to get to see that against Mike Perry. I believe I could stop him in one round, two rounds and maybe, max, he makes it to the third round. But people really need to stop doubting me and realize that I take this sport more seriously than 99% of pro boxers, actually.”

In the next breath of the same interview, Paul would issue this gem that both him and the interviewer– with straight faces– would let float into cyberspace like a Taco Bell fart inside a summertime subway car.

“When I put my mind to something I become the best at it,” Paul said. “That’s what I told myself with YouTube, ‘I’m going to become the most viewed YouTuber’ when I didn’t have any views. I put my mind to it, made it happen and I can do that in any aspect of my life.”

Okay.

Jake Paul, Going Forward

Bluster, hype, and a perpetually traffic-seeking media are understandable, even tolerable. This is the (sports) world we all live in. The worst part of the Jake Paul experience right now, though, is that it’s just not very interesting.

Paul’s routine was a little bit fun in the past, just for the fact that his existence annoyed the spit bucket water out of the fuddy-duddy boxing “purists.” But the routine has gotten old now, whether he’s beating old MMA guys or guys who aren’t even good enough to be considered club boxers. Even his bout with Mike Tyson seems more like a cash-out on his “dislikeability,” carried by Tyson’s name value and the public’s desire to be done with Paul.

For an avowed provocateur, Jake Paul has become the worst possible thing– boring.