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Jake Paul: The New “Golden Boy”? By Ralph Rimpell PhilBoxing.com Wed, 04 Dec 2024  Those of us that have been following boxing for a while and are old enough to remember back in 1992 when a young kid named Oscar De La Hoya came out of the Olympics winning a gold medal and fulfilled his deceased mother’s dream that he would become an Olympic champion someday. What a wonderful story. A good looking Latino kid of Mexican descent, talented amateur boxer, from humble beginnings, beat the odds, and accomplished what to many seemed an impossible dream. It was a terrific story that catapulted De La Hoya to mainstream United States audiences and gave him a platform to succeed. With the help of his Promoter (Top Rank) headed by Bob Arum, De La Hoya was well guided and generated millions. Therefore, it was appropriate that De La Hoya was rightly nick named “Golden Boy”. All the fighters in an around his weight division from his debut fight until he retired wanted to fight him because at that time, De La Hoya generated the most money and eventually the most Pay Per View (PPV) money. This Writer recalled the Latin demographics in the United States when De La Hoya was an active fighter. On fight night when De La Hoya was fighting, it was a party or in Spanish a “fiesta”. Not only did Mexicans and those of Mexican descent support him, but other Latinos from other Spanish speaking countries supported the PPV show as well. In 2007 De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr made history with their PPV fight selling 2.4 million buys generating $130 million, at the time was the most successful boxing PPV show ever. In 2013 Canelo vs Mayweather sold 2.48 million PPV buys and generated 136 million dollars. In 2015 Mayweather vs Pacquiao would surpass that selling 4.6 million PPVs and generating $400 million. In 2017 Mayweather vs McGregor sold 4.3 million PPV buys generating $600 million. As the boxing world is at the threshold of 2025 it has been a while since we have seen such record breaking PPV sales. Mayweather is retired, but still fights exhibitions. Pacquiao is also retired and has fought in exhibitions as well. McGregor is dealing with some legal issues outside of the sport but appears he will return not to boxing, but to Mixed Martial Arts if and when he does return. Of the record breaking PPVs of the past, one of the fighters that is currently active and can still sell good PPV numbers is Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. In his last bout with Edgar Berlanga in September, it was reported Canelo sold 750,000 PPV Buys. Last May 2024 when he fought Jaime Munguia it was reported that 550,000 buys were purchased. That is actually good because no other active fighter came close to those PPV numbers. Canelo is referred to as the “face of boxing” and like the now retired De La Hoya, all fighters in and around his weight class want to fight him. Canelo’s last fight was broadcast on Amazon Prime streaming services and promoted by Premier Boxing Champions (PBC). Almost a year ago Amazon Prime got into the boxing business after Showtime made its exit. Amazon’s Prime Video entered into an agreement with PBC to broadcast their fights back in December 2023. Now Netflix has recently entered into the boxing business as well by broadcasting a match between popular Youtuber Jake Paul (11-1, 7KOs) and former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson (50-7, 44KOS, 2NC) last month. We all know who Mike Tyson is and his storied career as the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But who is Jake Paul? Jake Joseph Paul is 27 years old. Jake and his brother, Logan, started posting videos online back in 2013 amassing a following of 5.3 million followers and 2 billion views on VINE. This led to acting on the Disney Channel. From 2017-2020 he went into the music business as a Rapper. In 2021 he entered boxing promotions by creating Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) with his business Adviser Nikisa Badarian. This was only one of other successful ventures as he had also startups and other investments. As a Promoter one of the fighters he signed to MVP was female boxer Amanda Serrano. In addition to being a Promoter, Paul also decided to be a boxer as well. Paul had one amateur bout in 2018 which he won. He already had 2 bouts and was 2-0 when he formed MVP. While Paul was popular and continued to generate interest the boxing world really did not take him seriously because he was mostly fighting mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters and a former NBA player (Nate Robinson). He sustained his first defeat a (split decision loss) to Tommy Fury (Tyson Fury’s younger brother) in his 8th professional fight. Tommy Fury actually is a professional boxer. Paul continued to fight MMA fighters and a few boxers until he compiled a record of 11-1, 7KOs. All the while he continued to challenge well known fighters such as the “face of Boxing” supermiddleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, who ignored him. For a couple of years, he challenged and flirted with idea of fighting former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson eventually accepted his offer. The fight was originally scheduled for July 20, 2024 but was postponed to November 15, 2024 when Tyson suffered an ulcer flare-up on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles in May. After almost 20 years away from the sport of boxing by Mike Tyson, Paul fought a 58-year-old in shape Mike Tyson. The interest in the mainstream was evident. The live gate at the AT&T stadium generated 18.1 million dollars which broke all previous records. Jake earned a reported 40 million dollars while Tyson earned a reported 20 million dollars for the fight. It was scheduled for 8 rounds with each round lasting 2 minutes. What also made this match special was that it was the first bout ever on the Netflix platform. No other Promoter in boxing had achieved that, but Jake Paul’s MVP did accomplish that. Netflix is arguably the biggest streaming service in the world. While there were reports of technical difficulties streaming the fight on actual fight night, it was reported 65 million people viewed the Paul vs Tyson card. Whether Paul is viewed as a legitimate fighter or not, he has shown that not only is he an excellent businessman but he can generate hundreds of millions of dollars. Paul officially weighed 227.2 lbs when he fought Tyson last month which makes him a heavyweight. After the success of Tyson vs Paul, fighters such as Undisputed light heavyweight (175lbs) champion Artur Beterbiev has challenged him. Ryan Garcia who will likely next fight at junior middleweight (154) has also challenged Paul. IBF Heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois has also challenged him to a fight. Canelo has not offered to fight him but he has taken notice of Paul. The list continues to grow of other fighters interested in fighting Paul. Smart Fighters are in the sport to make lots of money. If a youtuber who has decided to lace some boxing gloves can help them achieve generational wealth why not fight him on arguably the biggest platform in the world, Netflix. Mike Tyson was lured out of retirement to fight Paul for a reported guaranteed 20 million dollars and it wasn’t even a Pay Per view fight! Who does that? The answer is: Jake Paul. It appears with this kind of money and Platform (Netflix) Jake Paul can, much like Canelo, pick and choose whom he wants to fight and pay astronomical money to his opponent. If Jake Paul can do that it seems as though he is the New Golden Boy of boxing. It will be interesting to see who his next opponent is in 2025. Boxing Notes The 154lbs division is arguable the most exciting division in boxing today. This is the division of WBA 154 champion Terrance Crawford, former champ Israel Madrimov, WBC/WBO 154lbs champ Sebastien Fundora, IBF 154lbs champ Bakhram Murtazaliev who defeated Tim Tsyzu in what was likely the upset of the year for 2024, Vergil Ortiz, Errol Spence. For the past 48hrs the boxing world believed “Boots” and interim WBC 154lbs champion Vergil Ortiz would fight in February 22, 2025 in Saudi Arabia on a Turki Al-Shiekh card. Reports were the two verbally agreed to fight. Much to the disappointment of fans We have now found out that “Boots” wants the fight at 147lbs. That seems odd because Ortiz was literally hospitalized during a training camp when he last tried to make the 147lbs division and had to move up to 154lbs division for health reasons. It’s fair to presume most Boxing fans if not all as well as other boxers know Ortiz can no longer compete at 147lbs. Why doesn’t Boots know that? Eddie Hearn, “Boots” Promoter, says that the decision to fight at 147lbs to unify the other titles (WBC, WBA, WBO) from the other champions or move up to 154lbs to challenge Ortiz for his WBC 154lbs interim title is up to “Boots”. Many in the boxing world believe Boots is avoiding Ortiz. Perhaps that’s the case or perhaps that is not. Let’s all calm down and see what happens within the next 7 days regarding “Boot’s” decision on who he will fight next. ***Ralph Rimpell is a writer based out of New York and is a Boxing Correspondent for Philboxing.com. Ralph holds an undergraduate degree from City University of New York. He has been a Boxing Writer for over ten years having written for several top boxing websites on the World Wide Web. Before becoming a writer, Ralph's passion was for professional wrestling until he realized professional wrestling was entertainment and not a real sport. It was at that time the 1984 US Olympic team made up of future stars such as Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, etc. entered the professional ranks and signed with promotional outfit Main Events.It was also at that time a young exciting Heavyweight originally hailing from Brooklyn named Mike Tyson also turned professional and became the face of boxing. Young boxing fan Ralph just couldn't get enough of boxing as a large part of it was being broadcast on "free TV". As time went on, Ralph felt boxing writers were not being forthcoming with their boxing coverage, opinion pieces, interviews, etc. So Ralph decided to write an article and submitted it to a Boxing website thinking it would be deleted and ignored by the Editor. To Ralph's surprise his article was posted on their website and the readers embraced it. The rest is history. "I thank God for the Internet because it has created opportunities for writers like myself who likely would not have been given an opportunity to write for print publications. I hope someday soon to expand my role in Boxing on different levels." -- Ralph Rimpell Contact Writer: RLuvsboxing@aol.com Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ralph Rimpell.  |
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