By Jeff Aronow: YouTuber Jake Paul wants to make Tyron Woodley work for his rematch by getting a “3×2” inch tattoo, saying “I love Jake Paul” before he gives him a second fight after winning an ugly eight round split decision last Sunday night at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio.
(Photo credit: Amanda Westcott/Showtime)
Jake wants Woodley to have the 3×2 inch tattoo “permanent” in a visible area of his body that he can’t cover with clothing. That pretty much means that Woodley will need to have the tattoo on his lower arm unless Jake is thinking more along the lines of neck or face.
That would be going too far if Woodley had to get his neck or face tattooed with a message about loving Jake. The underlying message seems to be that Paul is trying to embarrass Woodley and have him experience humiliation to get his second big payday.
This request by the popular social media star Paul (4-0, 3 KOs) is like throwing fuel on the fire because the former UFC champion Woodley is angry, feeling he deserved the win against him in their main event fight on Showtime PPV.
Woodley feels that he was robbed of a victory by two judges, who scored it 78-74 and 77-75 for the 24-year-old social media influencer Jake. The third judge had Woodley winning 77-75.
Tyron’s tattoo guidelines:
1. 3×2 inches at least ✅
2. Can’t get it covered ✅
3. Permanent ✅
4. Must post on social media✅
5. Has to be visible with shorts and shirt on✅
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) August 30, 2021
Jake fought through adversity
“A welterweight in the UFC is almost a light heavyweight in boxing, so it’s a little different. I would say that Jake Paul showed me something,” said Max Kellerman to ESPN’s First Take.
“Now, he is a novice boxer, but he takes it seriously, he gets in shape and he fights hard. He was gassed in the second half of that fight.
“It doesn’t matter how hard you train. If you can’t relax in a boxing ring, you will gas. The best fighters that have stamina are the relaxed guys because they have a lot of experience.
“He [Jake] doesn’t. You only get that through experience. More training camps more fights, but he was up on points.
“He got rocked by Woodley, who can strike and Woodley couldn’t pull the trigger and lost on points. But it was Jake who showed me something because he fought through it.
“He hit the wall, fought through it and hung on, and won. The thing about Jake Paul, both Paul brothers, is that they’re so famous that they create huge events.
“How do you create huge events as a novice boxer when you don’t really know what you’re doing yet but you’re training hard? You need another famous dude to make an event.
“First, it was a YouTuber. It was no match. Let me find an athlete, Nate Robinson. No match. You got to find a fighter. Ben Askren. Ben Askren was a guy who didn’t strike.
“Now let me find a guy who does strike. Woodley. But Woodley is long in the tooth, he’s old and he’s naturally smaller and he doesn’t have a boxing background, even though he can strike,” said Kellerman.
You’ve got to give Jake credit for overcoming fatigue in the second half of the fight, as he was fighting on fumes in the last five rounds of the fight.
Jake was fine for the first three rounds, but starting in the fourth, it was all downhill for him in terms of him running out of gas.
Jake made it through the last five rounds by using movement and his powerful jab to keep the smaller 5’9″ Woodley on the outside.
Had Woodley more experience in boxing, he would have likely finished off Jake after knocking him down in the fourth round with a left hand.
Oddly enough, Woodley didn’t go for the kill after he knocked him down, and it looked to some fans like he purposefully let him service.
Some fans felt that the fix was in because Woodley showed no urgency to go for the knockout in the fourth and fifth rounds, which is when Jake looked vulnerable.
Paul vs. Woodley rematch possible
“That was so tough that they may do a rematch because he needs another training camp, Jake Paul. More experience. But next will be if he gets by that will be a guy that’s long in the tooth but isn’t naturally smaller.
“And then you get a guy that is passed his prime that is neither smaller but still not a boxing background. Like this, you build little by little by little until you eventually because remember, you have to fight famous guys to make an event until you eventually, if you keep winning, fight a famous boxer, who is more or less your size and who is past his prime but brings something to the event.
“If you succeed there, you take the next step. He’s [Jake] many steps away from doing that but he’s on the track to do that if he stays like this.
“It’s odd because he’s a legit novice professional boxer without much of an amateur background in enormous events.
“He can’t fight a top fighter for a long time. I don’t feel that way,” said Kellerman in reacting to his co-host saying he wants to see Jake “get beat up.”
“To me, if you train hard and respect the sport, you haven’t done anything,” said Kellerman.
Despite Jake playing games by insisting that Woodley must get a tattoo for him to get a rematch, ultimately, the decision on whether there will be a second fight will come down to the pay-per-view buy rate.
If the PPV numbers are high enough to warrant a rematch, we’ll likely see Jake and Woodley do it again. After all, Jake needs to look better to pass this test to move forward to face real boxers eventually.
But if the PPV numbers are low, it probably won’t matter if Woodley gets a tattoo. There won’t be a second fight because Jake will need a more popular opponent to bring in the PPV buys for his next fight on Showtime.
