Former UFC fighter Kevin Lee believes he is the ideal candidate to compete against Jake Paul in the 25-year-old's MMA debut.
'Motown Phenom' recently had a chat with TMZ Sports where he spoke about Paul signing with PFL. Lee stated that he would like to be the first to welcome Paul into the sport.
Lee went on to say that if Paul managed to last a round with him, 'The Problem Child' could earn the respect of the MMA community.
"If Jake Paul is serious about this and if he really wanna fight, if he wanna have that respect, he wanna have that attention, he want people to take him seriously, he's gonna have to fight a serious fighter... And I'm the best option for that.
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"I'm in my prime, I've fought the who's who of MMA, I fought six different world champions... If he'd make past the first round, people who really know this sport, and I'm talking about Dana White, would look at it and say, 'Oh, this kid could fight Leon Edwards one day. This kid caught fight Kamaru Usman one day.'"
You can watch Lee speak about Paul from the 0:36 mark below:
Paul recently announced that he has signed a multi-year deal with the PFL which will involve him competing in an MMA bout under the promotion's banner.
Kevin Lee plans on signing with the PFL
In an interview with TMZ Sports, Kevin Lee gave an update on his career. 'Motown Phenom' said that due to Eagle FC not putting up fight events regularly in the United States, he planned on signing with the PFL. Lee added that he was in the final stages of joining the fight promotion.
"I signed with Eagle FC last year, right? But they're not throwing shows on, you know. it's a lot of stuff happening in this world... Right now, I'm basically a free agent and we talking about going over to PFL. I'm in the very last bits of negotiation with them and we should have something signed within the next few days," said Kevin Lee.
After parting ways with the UFC in August 2021, Lee signed with Khabib Nurmagomedov's fighting promotion, Eagle FC. He competed only once in the promotion when he took on Diego Sanchez in a 165-pound bout.
With Lee possibly signing with the PFL, the idea of a fight against Jake Paul does not seem too far-fetched.