Eddie Hearn reacts to Jake Paul: ‘He’s on the wind-up’

Image: Eddie Hearn reacts to Jake Paul: 'He's on the wind-up'
By Boxing News - 04/26/2021 - Comments

By Matt Lieberman: Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing says he thinks that Jake Paul comes across as an obnoxious person, but he’s really not in real life. Hearn feels that the unbeaten YouTuber Paul (3-0, 3 KOs) is winding everyone up with the things he says, and the fans are going for it.

You can argue that Jake, 24, has assumed the villain role that we’ve seen various popular fighters in the past and present adopt to gain attention from the fans.

Jake has brought the theater/entertainment aspect to boxing that we’ve seen in other sports like WWE. The fans really go for the theater part of Jake’s persona, and it’s something that’s missing from most fighters in boxing.

They forget that this is entertainment and they need to entertain the fans and outside of the ring with their personality to build drama for their fights.

The fighters that fail to do that, their careers suffer no matter how talented they are. One example of that is Terence Crawford. A great fighter, but he’s failing to entertain the fans outside of the ring.

It’s obviously working incredibly well for Jake because he’s getting massive attention from his fights on Triller Fight Club, even though he’s yet to face a true boxer.

Image: Eddie Hearn reacts to Jake Paul: 'He's on the wind-up'

Eddie Hearn comments on Jake Paul

“My thoughts on Jake Paul? Listen, I promoted Jake Paul [for Ali Eson Gibs] fight,” said Eddie Hearn on Instagram.

“I think the one thing I’ll say about Jake Paul is, he comes across as an absolute bell-end, but he’s actually not. He’s alright.

“I’ve always found him alright, but he’s just on the wind-up basically and everybody’s biting.”

Jake took a shot at UFC president Dana White last weekend in creating to some of his comments about him not buying into his pay-per-view numbers for his April 17th fight against former UFC fighter Ben Askren on Triller Fight Club.

According to Jake, he brought in 1.5 million buys on pay-per-view for the Askren fight, and generated $65 million.

Here’s Dana White’s comments he made about Jake Paul last Saturday at the UFC 261 post-fight press conference:

“There is a market for that,” White said. “That is not what I do. That’s not what I do. This kid’s [Jake] going to make a couple of bucks before this ride is over. It’s just not what I do.

“The numbers that you’re hearing [Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren did on Triller PPV] did, they’re full of s***. They didn’t pull those kinds of numbers at all, not even f***** close.

“What happened here tonight is what I do: The best vs. the best,” said White.

It obviously didn’t make the UFC look good with the way that Jake was able to easily dispatch one of their best fighters from the past in Ben Askren.

I mean, Jake has only been boxing for a short while, and yet he was able to knock out Askren in the first round. That doesn’t reflect well on MMA fighters, does it? It suggests that it’s a sport that is basically wrestlers with rudimentary striking skills.

Image: Eddie Hearn reacts to Jake Paul: 'He's on the wind-up'

Jake Paul puts Dana White on blast

Shortly after hearing what Dana White had said about him last Saturday, Jake Paul gave his rebuttal to his comments on social media, saying the following:

“Dana you claimed you would bet $1M on me losing. Set up Askren to train with Freddie Roach…game him full access to UFCPI…and he still got his ass handed to him. Seems like you are the real douche.

“In my 3rd fight, I made more in total pay than any fighter in UFC history,” Jake Paul continued in ripping into Dana White. “Maybe it’s time to pay your fighters their fair share? No wonder they all want to get into boxing.

“Pay them their fair share….$10M purse for each guy, plus PPV. Why are UFC fighters so underpaid vs. Boxers?

“Why did I make more in my 3rd fight than all but two (Khabib [Nurmagomedov] & Conor [McGregor]) UFC fighters have in history? I know why.”