On Saturday night (October 29), Jake Paul upset UFC icon Anderson Silva on points, but the 25-year-old is less than delighted with the number of fans who watched the boxing match.
A plausible explanation
Paul claims that pay-per-view sales for the bout on Showtime suffered as a result of rumors that 50-year-old Silva would be knocked out during a sparring session. This was contrary to what the former vlogger had anticipated.
The pro-turned-YouTuber fighter predicts that buys in the US will be in the 200-300k area, much below his pre-fight aim of 700k.
The pre-buys were booming, Logan Paul claimed on his brother’s Impaulsive podcast.
“The general public observes that and believes it is not happening because Tommy Fury and Hasim Rahman withdrew, and because Jake Paul was unable to organize an event.
We were still selling tickets, but on that day, everything stopped. It crushed ticket sales. It was very irritating. I predict that it will probably fall between 200,000 and 300,000, which is somewhat depressing.
Paul defeated Silva by unanimous decision on the scorecards despite Silva having multiple boxing victories to his credit and being a legitimate candidate for the UFC GOAT title.
As for the fight itself, it may have been his strongest performance to date against a true combat sport icon.
According to the American, the time of year it occurred, with multiple other events stealing the spotlight away from the fight, was another factor that contributed to the PPV sales tanking the way they did.
Paul also said “This is the worst time of the year to fight—Halloween, the World Series, and Sunday football—but guess what—I had to fight. From now on, all of my fights will take place in the summer, when there are no sporting events.
“The months of July and early August are like this ideal window without any sports. All of my prior battles took place during Covid, a time when nobody had anything to do or watch. There was no NBA or NFL action.
I was sick of waiting around, so I had to battle this year to get it f****ng done.
Following the cancellation of their previous match, Jake Paul’s next fight appears to be against the aforementioned Tommy Fury.
Paul previously said that he’d be happy to fight the former Love Island star in the UK – if the opportunity presented itself. A large portion of the Fury clan is currently prohibited from entering the US.
Paul said to Ariel Helwani that he would find it to be a “easy battle,” and he said, “Yeah, there’s obviously intrigue, but I believe if his team is taking the financial risk and staging the event then I’m good.
“I just don’t want to take that risk because I think he’s [Fury] going to back out again, most likely.”