Jake Paul is making a move toward boxing legitimacy

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Until now, Jake Paul’s foray into professional boxing has been best described as an oddity — a weird commentary on the modern world, where an influencer fighting a variety of non-boxers pulls in massive pay-per-view sales and accompanying viral hype.

No longer, it seems.

For with his sixth bout, following previous matchups with a YouTuber, retired NBA player Nate Robinson and a pair of washed-up UFC fighters, the unpredictable and controversial Paul will do something few saw coming. He’ll take on a legitimately accomplished boxer.

Celebrity boxing dust-ups have become all the rage over the past couple of years and Paul, along with his brother Logan, has been the face of the movement.

The huge response to Logan Paul’s clash with rapper KSI in 2018 started things off. Since then, you could barely move for matches between characters as diverse as former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, faded pop star Aaron Carter and ex-NFL wide receiver Chad Ochocinco. A few years back, current Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau even tried his hand — and won.

Some have generated a greater response than others, and Jake Paul’s fights, which have earned him millions in purses and PPV buys, have led the way. Using the entertainer’s vast social media following allowed for the kind of promotional reach most boxing matches simply cannot attain. For his last bout, in which he was the main event in his rematch against Tyron Woodley, a fight featuring women’s world champ Amanda Serrano was on the undercard.

Many boxing purists hated the development, railing against the Paul’s fights and the growing series of exhibitions as freak shows that had little in the way of sporting value. Paul has always countered with this question: How can bringing a younger audience and fresh sets of eyeballs to a sport that battles for mainstream attention be bad?

Now he’s overturning the other part of the criticism, by taking a leap up in quality that is exceedingly rare for someone with so few fights. Paul will next challenge Hasim Rahman Jr. at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Aug. 6. 

Rahman Jr. is a cruiserweight who splits time between Las Vegas and Baltimore and holds a 12-1 mark (six knockouts). He’s also the son of former heavyweight champ Hasim Rahman, who famously knocked out Lennox Lewis in a major upset in 2001.

He doesn’t have anything like the kind of inbuilt following Paul’s opponents typically do, clocking in at 2,200 followers on Twitter and 270,000 on Instagram. Paul, by way of comparison, has more than 20 million Instagram followers. Tommy Fury, the British boxer and reality TV star that Paul was supposed to fight before Fury’s withdrawal, has 4.2 million.

Rahman’s closest brush with notoriety came eight years ago, when he and his brother Sharif attempted to sue Floyd Mayweather over claims Mayweather had forced Sharif into an uninterrupted 31-minute sparring session at his gym, which was broadcast on a Showtime promotional “All Access” show.

What is clear here, though, is that Rahman was selected for his boxing prowess rather than his fame, a significant departure in Paul’s method.

“This is a massive risk,” Paul told Fighthype. “No boxer has ever really taken this kind of a risk early in their career. Canelo Alvarez’s sixth fight was against a guy who was 2-2. (Three-weight world champ) Gervonta Davis’ sixth opponent was 2-8. I like a challenge and people are calling me crazy, but that’s what I like. I think I am crazy.”

USA TODAY Sports boxing expert Lance Pugmire believes Paul was left with little choice but to back up his big talk with progressively more difficult fights if he wanted to sustain momentum in his boxing foray.

“Jake Paul, for a while now, insisted he was very serious about getting a legitimate pro boxer in the ring,” Pugmire told me, via telephone. “Undoubtedly he has now accomplished that. When you’re involved in main events at Madison Square Garden you have to be involved in significant bouts. Fights that are going to draw an audience, not only to see how good you are but to see if this can be your undoing.”

Picking Rahman has finally gotten Paul some of the respect in the boxing community that he was looking for. The response to the fight announcement has generally been a mix of positivity and intrigue. 

There is no doubt Paul has worked hard and improved his skills significantly over the past couple of years, putting in the hours with reputed trainers and dedicating himself to a punishing regime. 

Whether that will be enough to deal with someone of Rahman’s skill level … well, that’s what he’s hoping you’ll pay to find out.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. You can subscribe to the daily newsletter here.