Jake Paul inserted himself straight into the UFC storyline when he crashed UFC 261 and sat cageside at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville on Saturday night.
First, he had a heated kerfuffle with former heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier. Fingers were pointed at each other during the exchange and beefy bodyguards were involved before Cormier was escorted back to the broadcast booth for his color commentary duties.
MMA fans later showered the YouTuber-turned boxer with chants of “F— Jake Paul!”
Conor McGregor was even compelled to tweet “UFC high level fighting > Blogger jack— boxing,” a jab directed toward the adversary who’s been yearning to fight the former two-division UFC champion.
After the main event concluded featuring welterweight champion Kamaru Usman’s devastating second-round knockout of Jorge Masvidal, UFC president Dana White was asked to address Paul’s presence during the MMA promotion’s pay-per-view show.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This kid’s done a good job of putting himself in a place to make some money,” said White. “So good for him. He’s got you guys talking about him all the time and asking questions about him. He’s got Daniel Cormier running after him, so he’s doing something right.”
White then transitioned into Paul’s boxing acumen, which has featured three wins over the last 15 months, all by knockout over the likes of YouTuber Ali Eson Gib, three-time NBA Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson and former ONE Champion and UFC fighter Ben Askren.
“He knocked out an NBA guy that was 40-years-old and 30 pounds less than him. I don’t even know what to think about the Askren thing. The whole thing is f—— mind-boggling to me, but good for him. Grab that money while you can, kid,” said White.
“People want to see that, and it’s great, and this kid’s going to make a couple bucks before this ride is over. It’s just not what I do. What I do is what happened tonight. What happened tonight is we sold this place out and it was packed, and the numbers that you’re hearing that [Paul and Triller] did are full of s—. [Paul and Triller are] full of sh!t. They didn’t pull those kinds of numbers — at all. Not even f—— close.”
The figures White was referencing are Paul’s self-reported figures of the 1.5 million PPV buys and $75 million dollars he generated from his April 17 pay-per-view on Triller against Askren.
Other reports have said the PPV generated 1.3 million PPVs.
White is not buying any of it.
“I don’t believe anything [Paul and Triller] say. That’s a f—— circus. None of that is real. Do you think any of that s— that’s going on over there is real? C’mon, man. I built a real business here, a real sport. That’s a freakshow,” said White.
“Do you know what would happen to this guy — he ain’t fighting in the UFC. You’re getting me f—— talking about this guy again. He’s getting hand-picked opponents, and God knows what else is going on with that whole f—— thing. There is a market for that. That’s not what I do.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com