Jake Paul is the side show of fighting sports right now and even though I think the guy is a complete douche, I have to admire the way that he uses social media to get under people's skin and is then able to command big paydays for both himself and the people that he faces off against all through a promotion that no one had even heard of a year ago called Triller.
Jake Paul was at the last UFC event in Orlando, and I have to say that I did get a bit of joy when the camera focused on him in the crowd and the crowd went wild..... with boos
Although I did not witness it because I was too focused on the fight and also UFC is not very interested in giving Paul a great deal of attention even though he routinely targets the promotions fighters for his own bouts, but apparently he got into a war of words with fighter-turned-announcer Daniel Cormier also. This resulted in the crowd starting to chant "Fuck Jake Paul" over and over again and I admit that I did hear that while the event was going on and it brought me great joy.
Jake responded exactly how you would expect him to.
After Kamaru Usman dispatched the soul out of his opponent, Jake wasted no time in calling the champ out and offering him a very big payday - a much larger one than he would normally get from UFC at more than $10 million. To be fair to Usman, he actually mentioned Paul first in an interview, but only after prodded to do so by a TMZ interviewer.
Usman, who is likely not even allowed to accept the offer without Dana White's permission anyway, declined in a very polite way, simply suggesting that "I ain’t no Disney kid and I don’t play fighting." Jake Responded in a way that only people like him would even consider when he sent the following tweet back
Now Jake kind of crossed a line here by involving some other fighter's family members in a Tweet but this isn't the first time he has done this: He went after Conor McGregor's wife and also Ben Askren's kids, but as far as I know he didn't use photos. Kids are kind of off limits in these trash talking things and I hope that Usman is able to keep his cool and don't take the bait. However, Usman's response, which I hope is his last, was quite spooky and probably borderline in near violation of Twitter's terms of service when he said.
I understand you think this is a game which is probably why you don’t realize that this is how people Truly get hurt. I don’t play fighting and I can change your life in the worst way.
So what is going to end up happening here? Like I said, I don't think it is up to UFC fighters if they are allowed to take a boxing match on the side and Paul is doing his best to get under the skin of all of MMA, which is likely why the confrontation happened with Daniel Cormier in the first place. Apparently Cormier had said he would "slap Paul if he ever saw him" so Paul put himself in a position to be slapped and then called out Cormier for not doing it.
There is one problem with this situation that Jake has said that Cormier "bitched out" in. If Cormier does slap him in that situation, he is dead to rights guilty of assault, whether Jake is going to press charges or not. Cormier realizes this and his very lucrative commentary job is on the line as well. So I think that DC definitely did the right thing by walking away.
However, by putting Kamaru Usman's daughter into a tweet he might have achieved the desired result and put a rage into the man enough to have him fight him. However, I am hoping that this doesn't happen. If UFC or other promotions keep giving Paul what he is clearly looking for, it is the same as feeding the trolls on forums. If UFC just pretends as though Jake Paul isn't there for a while, he will have no choice but to go fishing elsewhere.
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As much as I would like to see Paul get KO'd badly the way that Masvidal did, I also think that Paul is deliberately targeting UFC and for them to engage is a lose/lose situation, even if one of their fighters does take Paul's head off.
What do you think about all of this?