By Dan Ambrose: Teddy Atlas believes that Jake Paul gained “credibility” from his loss to the boxer Tommy Fury last Sunday night, which has earned him “more respect” in the boxing world than he had going into the fight.
With the Youtuber Jake (6-1, 4 KOs) being competitive against a fighter that comes from a boxing family, it earned him respect, and it makes the rematch with Tommy (9-0, 4 KOs) bigger than it otherwise would be.
Atlas notes that Jake and Tommy are never going to beat world class fighters and won’t ever capture a world title during their careers.
It’s doubtful whether either of them will ever bother trying to fight the top 15 contenders unless it’s a fringe-level fighter that has no business being ranked in the top tier in the first place.
Sadly, there are plenty of those, but they won’t beat solid contenders at cruiserweight.
In Fury’s case, he seems less ambitious than Jake, so it’s unlikely that he won’t want to take a massive pay cut to go from fighting Youtubers back to facing the regular run-of-the-mill boxers he’d been fighting before he was given this opportunity last Sunday.
“Fury has used his family name. He was 8-0 as a pro against very limited opposition. He used his family name and got into this,” said Teddy Atlas on his ‘The Fight channel, discussing Tommy Fury taking advantage of his last name to get opportunities in boxing.
“He [Jake] put himself into a competitive situation, and he came up a little bit short. Neither one of these guys are going to be world class fighters. Neither one is going to be able to beat world class boxers.
“I don’t know that Fury, even though he’s the professional boxer and is 9-0, I don’t even know if he can even beat solid fighters. Forget about world class fighters. Solid guys that had an amateur career and a pro career that are just good solid guys.
“He’d have to be very careful stepping with that doesn’t take away from what he is and when he did. The only reason it was possible to strike oil is the preliminary work Paul did in building his career, building this event, building this opportunity, building this medium. He built a medium for these events.
“He took celebrity boxing from years ago and took it to another level, and took it to a more credible level. I’m telling you right now, he [Jake] didn’t hurt himself. I know his zero was important in the world Jake Paul is in. It was around the zero, but he gained more credibility than he ever had in fighting this [Tommy Fury] guy.
“This guy wasn’t great, but he was a boxer. He did have lineage from a family of boxers, and by fighting this guy and being competitive, he’s earned more respect in the boxing world than he ever had going in.
“So as far as beinng successful, yeah, he wanted to win, but I think the fight was good enough where the event was credible, and they can do another one.
“For Paul, it’s got to be a rematch because I don’t know where else he goes. That undefeated record was important because that’s what made him a novelty. ‘How good could he be?'” said Atlas.
