Fight fans, you're getting a Jake vs. Mike fight in July.
Just not the one you were hoping for.
After originally scheduling a Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight for July 20, boxing fans and followers of the "Problem Child" will see the 27-year-old social influencer in a match against former UFC star Mike Perry in Tampa.
Although Perry's experience in traditional boxing is limited to just two fights and a record of 1-1, the 32-year-old is undefeated in bare-knuckle boxing with a 5-0-0 record in the BKFC organization.
Will those bare-knuckle skills translate to the traditional boxing ring? Can Perry pull off the upset and disrupt Paul's momentum ahead of the rescheduled Tyson fight in November?
The B/R Combat Sports team got together to provide their predictions for this one.
Do you have your own opinion on the fight? Submit your thoughts now in the comments section of the app!
A Violent Night for Jake Paul
Years ago, a friend and I were talking about an upcoming UFC fight between Cung Le and Wanderlei Silva. We both agreed that Le was the sharper striker of the two middleweights, but my friend raised the interesting point that the former Strikeforce star might simply be unable to withstand the level of violence Silva was known for dishing out.
He turned out to be right, as Silva thrashed Le to a second-round stoppage victory.
I think about that conversation often.
There are some fighters out there who are so aggressive and ferocious that it makes the obvious technical holes in their games less significant. "Platinum" Mike Perry meets that description and has proven it particularly emphatically throughout his unbeaten five-fight run in the BKFC ring.r
Jake Paul is going to learn this the hard way this weekend.
While Paul is no technical whiz in the boxing ring, he is probably a more polished boxer than Perry due to the sheer amount of time he's dedicated to the craft over the last few years. It won't matter.
Paul may sting Perry with some jabs early on, but the BKFC star isn't going to go down. He's going to keep marching forward, putting everything he has behind every punch — particularly given that he doesn't need to worry about breaking his hands as much as he does when he fights bare knuckle.
By the fifth or sixth round, Paul is going to be bruised and bloodied, and probably wondering why he chose a career in "The Sweet Science" over his cushy life as an influencer.
Prediction: Mike Perry by sixth-round TKO
- Tom Taylor
Yawn, Another Jake Paul Win
Jake Paul wants to be a legitimate boxer and fight the championship-level likes of Canelo Alvarez and others.
No, really.
C'mon, what's a guy do when his nearly 60-year-old foe drops out but replaces him with a guy who had a sub-.500 record in the UFC and was KO'd in his lone ring appearance by a guy with his stoppage losses to the likes of Bakhram Murtazaliev and Brian Ceballo?
Forget that Mike Perry last fought in the octagon as a welterweight (171 pounds), is labeled as an 184-pounder by the BKFC promotion, and will fight Paul another 16 pounds higher at 200. It's still sellable as a real pay-per-view fight because Perry likes to get in there and scrap, right?
Fortunately for Team Paul, the folks most likely to be titillated by his gloved performances aren't the sorts who get bogged down by things like three-decade age differences or 30-pound weight gaps.
So they'll happily scarf down another helping of "Problem Child" nonsense and be riveted afterward when he suggests that a 58-year-old Mike Tyson is next on his list, and maintains the aforementioned four-division king (Alvarez) is shaking in fear at the prospect of a showdown.
Give us a break, please.
Prediction: Paul by fourth-round KO
- Lyle Fitzsimmons
Jake Paul Wins to Set Up Mega Fight vs. Mike Tyson
Let's call a spade a spade.
This is a tune-up fight for Jake Paul ahead of his Mike Tyson bout.
To say that Jake's opponents have been less than stellar when it comes to the sweet science would be an understatement.
From Nate Diaz to Anderson Silva to Ben Askren to Tyron Woodley, Paul's foes have been game in terms of bringing the fight but well lacking in terms of boxing skills.
Now, Mike Perry has boxing experience, so it's a little different in the sense that Perry won't be a complete novice in the ring. But one thing you can say about Paul is that he actually has decent boxing skills. Are they world-champion-worthy and making people forget about Terrence Crawford? No. But they are enough to win a fight against a former MMA star.
Prediction: Jake Paul by fifth-round KO
- Lucky Ngamwajasat
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