![]() Boxing suffered a pandemic-driven shock, sending promoter revenues down a staggering 47% in 2020 to $236 million, according to a report from IBISWorld. Paul couldn’t have timed his arrival any better. “I’m hungry, I’m motivated, and there’s just nothing that anyone could do to stop me.” “This is just the start, and I love proving y’all wrong, and I’ll continue to prove y’all wrong, and hop aboard the train or get the fuck out of the way because you’re going to get ran over,” Paul says. An ESPN Ringside poll dubbed his most recent fight, against former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in December, the “Knockout of the Year.” Then Paul rattled off four more victories, three against former MMA fighters that featured eight-figure paydays. #JAME PAUL FIGHT PRO#With no prior boxing experience, Paul defeated Deji by TKO and, he says, “fell in love with the sport.” He turned pro 17 months later and beat another YouTuber, AnEsonGib. His internet career was on the skids when, in 2018, British YouTuber KSI and his brother, Deji, called out Paul and his brother, Logan. Paul’s entry into boxing wasn’t for love of the game it was opportunistic. Paul secured a fifth-round TKO over Deji in 2018 to kickstart his boxing career. He’s “never going to be a world champion, never going to be a world-class fighter, never going to be able to compete against anyone who’s even close to world level. “He’s not terrible, but he’s not very good,” says Hearn, chairman of British sports promotion company Matchroom. ![]() Oscar De La Hoya and Joe Rogan have both called Paul the real deal. Although Paul has improved, experts remain split on how far he can go. #JAME PAUL FIGHT PLUS#It’s a discipline requiring years of mental and physical training, plus match repetitions. #JAME PAUL FIGHT PROFESSIONAL#While not impossible, it’s unusual for professional boxers to pick up the sport in their 20s. I just think that they resent the fact that he has been able to get to the top and earn so much money so quickly.” He adds: “There are plenty of fighters that are far more talented than Jake that grind away for years, decades sometimes. “Definitely a lot of people still see him as a gimmick,” says Will Harvey, head of boxing at 258 Management, which works with boxers including Joshua and WBO cruiserweight champion Lawrence Okolie. That Paul found fame as an unsavory internet prankster could be a reason the boxing community has been so reluctant to accept him. If Jake Paul turns out to be exactly what the sport needs, and it’s looking like he is, it won’t be despite his offensiveness. “This is just the start, and I love proving y’all wrong, and I’ll continue to prove y’all wrong.”īad behavior is no barrier to boxing prominence. Paul teamed up with Hearn to organize what would become the most successful women’s fight ever, a sold-out event between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor at the Garden in April that paid the two fighters more than $1 million each. Now, in partnership with former UFC CFO Nakisa Bidarian, he’s using his company, Most Valuable Promotions, to reshape the standards of boxing. With more than 60 million followers across social media channels and a penchant for hurling attention-grabbing insults at boxing’s biggest names, Paul has injected the kind of viral attention desperately needed by a sport trying to break through to younger fans. #JAME PAUL FIGHT FULL#“People want to see the fights, I guess, and the money comes along with that.”Ĭlick here for full coverage of the Forbes Highest-Paid Athletes list.įor once, he’s being modest. “It doesn’t make any sense, but hey, it is what it is, right?” Paul says of his astronomical earnings. His two fights over that span fetched him around $30 million, even though he has still never fought a professional boxer. ![]() ![]() Hate him a lot or hate him a little, it’s working: Paul, who lives in Puerto Rico, is the world’s 46th-highest-paid athlete, according to Forbes, having earned $38 million before taxes over the last 12 months. He seems to have found his niche, and less than three years after his first professional bout, Paul has transformed himself from shock-content internet star into a boxing force and, he’d like you to believe, the future of the sport. Paul is proof that being a bad boy can pay. ![]()
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