Jake Paul’s fight with Hasim Rahman Jr is now in jeopardy, with Paul saying Rahman’s team are trying to get more money.
Jake Paul appeared on The MMA Hour to simultaneously sell his Aug. 6 fight with Hasim Rahman Jr, and say that there’s a good chance the fight won’t happen, with Rahman allegedly trying to renegotiate the contract for more money.
Paul, doing the interview from a car in Puerto Rico, on his way to fly to New York for tomorrow’s scheduled press conference, did his usual promo style
“None of these guys actually really want to fight, is what I’m coming to find out,” Paul said about eight minutes into his interview, after having already hyped the fight.
“Hasim Rahman Jr actually right now is trying to renegotiate his contract. So he signed a contract last week for 10 times more than he’s ever been paid for any one of his fights, and now, boom, fast-forward one week, he’s trying to renegotiate, he’s trying to suck more money out of the fight, he’s doing anything he can to try and claw to make the money, because I think he realizes the consequences of what might happen. I think he’s actually scared to fight me.
“A lot of these guys are excited by the money at first, but when it comes time to start training and getting into camp, they all chicken out. Who knows if this fight’s even gonna happen? We’re not gonna pay him more money because he’s not worth it. He has a name but he doesn’t have a massive name. It’s unfortunate. I hope Nate Diaz can get out of his (UFC) contract because I believe Nate Diaz will actually fight me and isn’t afraid unlike most of these professional boxers.”
Paul continued, “His team is (threatening to not show up for the press conference), and we don’t give a fuck. I’m not paying the guy more. I’m tired of these guys trying to overprice themselves. We’re paying him 10 times more than he’s ever made and now he’s trying to ask for 30 times more than what he’s ever made all of a sudden.
“But there’s a signed contract, he already signed the dotted line, and now he’s trying to be, like, ‘Well, I’m not gonna fight,’ and it’s tough because he can just fake an injury or say his hand is broken or some shit. You saw Tommy Fury do it with the visa thing. There’s so many excuses in boxing to get out of things. There is a worry this fight won’t even happen.”
“He just wants more money. That’s it. No reason, just, like, there’s these new promoters that all of a sudden came in out of nowhere, and they’re, like, ‘Hey, want want 30 times more money.’ And they’re these promoters who were, like, involved with his career at some point, and they basically told Hasim, like, ‘No, you should be getting paid more. We’re not doing this fight unless you get paid more.’ Pretty unfortunate, but it just shows that these guys, they want to fight me until it’s time to actually fight me. They all want the money, and then they’re, like, ‘Whoa, I want more money! I want more money!’”
Then, like a proper politician, Paul mixed his messages and spoke very confidently about things that aren’t really true, casting himself as boxing’s savior after doing a few novelty events and asking a heavyweight non-prospect with a legacy name to boil down to 200 lbs to fight him.
“This is why boxing was such a dying sport before I came into it and literally saved the whole entire sport, basically single-handedly, along with some other heavyweights and some lightweights, but mostly because of me boxing was saved, and I’m starting to realize what the problem was,” he said.
Paul then went on to ramble through a shaky connection about Tyson Fury being afraid to fight Anthony Joshua or Oleksandr Usyk, and Gervonta Davis and Devin Haney not fighting yet, or Gervonta and Ryan Garcia, theorizing someone is always scared. He then complained that fighters cannot be forced to do fights the way they are in UFC, not long after having again, in the same interview, stated his qualms with how UFC does business and pays its fighters.
“That’s why I give the UFC props, that’s why I give Dana White props, but it pisses me off because I just want to get to the ring and do my fucking job, put on a show for the fans,” he added.
Paul said there’s no backup if Rahman pulls out.
“If Hasim pulls out, we just won’t do the event. I’m tired of switching the opponents. There’s really no other names,” he said, which is pretty debatable, but whatever. He said it’s “too last-minute” to switch the event out again, and “too late” to give someone “a fair amount of time” to prepare, which is all reasonable, to give him credit for that.
“I want someone in there who’s gonna give me a challenge,” he said. “This is the last resort. Hopefully it comes through. We’re not paying him more, so we’ll see what decision he makes.”
