It sounds as though Jake Paul is ready to move on to the next stage of his professional boxing career, which is to start fighting actual professional boxers.
Jake Paul has possibly generated more money than any 4-0 boxer in the entire history of the sport and certainly in the modern era. And he’s done so by implementing the novel idea of being a professional boxer without fighting professional boxers.
It’s difficult to criticize Paul from a business sense. After all, this approach has paid off handsomely for the YouTuber. From a sports standpoint, though, many people have taken notice of the level of competition he’s faced in his career thus far.
Paul has responded to these criticisms by arguing that he is being held to a different standard than the boxing newcomers of the past, who fought opposition either at around the same skill level or even lower than whom Paul has faced thus far.
Speaking on The Full Send podcast, Jake Paul revealed that he is leaning heavily towards changing this whole narrative in his next fight by taking on a professional boxer for the first time, and he even has a specific name in mind (h/t Dexerto.com).
“I think Tommy Fury is at the top of that list. He’s skilled, he’s undefeated, and he’s a real boxer,” Paul said of his next opponent. “He has like 4 million followers on Instagram which is good engagement. “He has the fans from like his relationship show [Love Island].”
As Paul has stated in the past, it’s about constantly advancing to the next stage of difficulty. First, he knocked out a fellow YouTuber; then a retired NBA player; then a one-dimensional grappler; and in Tyron Woodley, a former UFC champion with respected striking skills. After being the favorite in his most recent fight against Woodley, Paul recognizes that it’s time to raise the stakes in order to keep himself fully motivated.
“I’ve been the favorite, so now I almost want to go into a fight where it’s like ‘there’s no way he’s going to do this.’
“I just want to keep proving people wrong because I could take a social media influencer and fight them right now and make a decent bag. It’s just a tough sell because I did all of that.”
Do you think Jake Paul will experience the same success when he begins facing professional boxers?
