Fury Beats Paul – Tonight’s Live Results From Diriyah

By Boxing News - 02/26/2023 - Comments

By Mark Eisner: Cruiserweight Tommy Fury (9-0, 4 KOs) boxed his way to an unimpressive eight round split decision win over previously unbeaten Youtuber Jake Paul (6-1, 4 KOs) on Sunday night at the Diriyah Arena, in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.

The scores were 75-74 for Jake and, 76-73, 76-73 for Fury. In the eighth round, Jake dropped Tommy with a jab to the head. Both fighters were docked points.

YouTube video

Fury did a lot of clinching and arguably should have been penalized more than once for the constant holding. It had an impact on the final results, but he got away with it, so it is what it is.

No word yet on whether there will be a rematch. Tommy, 23, would likely jump at the chance to get another payday from Jake because he’s not going to get that kind of money against any of the cruiserweight, and he stands no chance of beating the good fighters in the division.

Undercard results

  • Turning back the clock, 39-year-old faded former two-division world champion Badou Jack (28-3-3, 17 KOs) pulled off a minor upset, stopping the highly vulnerable WBC cruiserweight Ilunga ‘Junior’ Makabu (29-3, 25 KOs) in the 12th round to ripping his title away from him. Badou took advantage of the 35-year-old Makabu’s fatigue in the later rounds to score a stoppage in the twelfth after unloading with a blizzard of shots. Makabu was down in rounds four and eleven. The time of the stoppage was at :54 of the twelfth. It’s unclear if there’s a rematch clause in the contract. If so, we’ll see a second fight soon between Makabu and Badou. Going into the contest, Badou was ranked #3 WBC, which suggests this was a voluntary defense for Makabu, meaning a rematch could be in the cards. With the victory, Badou is now a three division world champion. It’ll be interesting to see how long Badou can hold onto the WBC title. While it’s nice that Badou captured a world title at 39, he had the ideal champion to do it against in Makabu, who is an old guy with not much speed or talent. If Badou has to defend against one of the good contenders in the WBC’s rankings, like Richard Riakporhe, he’ll likely lose his belt in his first defense.
  • In the ONLY competitive fight on the undercard thus far, on welterweight Ziyad Almaayouf (2-0, 1 KOs)  had to get off the deck in the opening round to come back to squeak out a narrow four round unanimous decision win over Ronnald Martinez (3-2-1, 0 KOs). The scores were as follows: 38-37, 38-37, and 38-37.
  • Cruiserweight Muhsin Cason (11-0, 8 KOs) stopped a badly overmatched Taryel Jafarov (18-6, 17 KOs) by a first round knockout. Jafarov was knocked down right off the bat and batted around by ring by the 29-year-old Cason. In between rounds, the contest was halted.
  • Undefeated light welterweight prospect Bader Samreen (8-0, 7 KOs) looked powerful & dangerous, destroying journeyman Viorel Simion (23-10, 9 KOs) by a first round knockout in a scheduled eight round bout. The 22-year-old Samreen unloaded on Simion with a blizzard of heavy shots to put him down. The time of the stoppage by referee Daniel Van Der Wiele was 1:26.

YouTube video

YouTube video

Preview: Although the Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury fight counts as a professionally sanctioned clash in the cruiserweight division, it’s viewed by many as a gloried celebrity match between two guys with a large following on social media. It’s an internet celebrity match. What can you say?

Jake is an oddity, showing you can attract massive attention to his fights without actually fighting anyone of quality. He’s done it by making noise. You can’t criticize him for exploiting the sport if Jake can get away with it, as he’s proving; more power to him.

You can argue that the best match on the card is the title fight between WBC cruiserweight champion Ilunga Makabu(29-2, 25 KOs) and 39-year-old former two-division world champion Badou Jack (27-3-3, 15 KOs).

The undercard seems to have been thrown together without much emphasis on entertaining the fans.

It’s likely they chose to tilt all the money at the top with Jake & Tommy, and opted to scrimp on the undercard, throwing in basically anyone, knowing that the fans, many of them non-boxing fans, wouldn’t care.

With these types of Youtuber/social media fans, they likely wouldn’t take notice even if the undercard was stacked, which it clearly isn’t. It’s a skeleton crew.

Seven years ago, Badou was a top fighter at 168, beating the likes of Lucian Bute, George Groves, Anthony Dirrell, and Nathan Cleverly. However, after a war against Adonis Stevenson in 2018, Badou hasn’t looked the same, struggling ever since in losses to Jean Pascal and Marcus Browne.

Since suffering those back-to-back defeats, Badou has veered away from fighting quality opposition and has faced five consecutive no-name fighters to get back to winning again.

Based on the low-level opposition Badou has faced in the last three years, he doesn’t deserve to be fighting for a world title, but he’s getting a shot anyway, likely based on name recognition.

Youtuber Jake Paul and reality TV personality Tommy Fury will do battle in their celebrity boxing match tonight in an eight round catchweight match at 185 lbs on ESPN+ PPV in the U.S and BT Sport Box Office in the UK from the Diriyah Arena, in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.