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This weekend sees one of the biggest events in combat sports in 2021, as social media superstar Jake Paul takes on former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in the boxing ring.
Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley is set to be broadcast on pay-per-view by Showtime, and is almost guaranteed to draw millions of dollars – but is it really worth watching?
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For fans of Jake Paul’s YouTube channel, perhaps it is, but for serious fans of combat sports? The truth is that it might be a better bet to avoid this fight altogether.
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On that note, here are five reasons why fight fans should avoid Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley.
#5. Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley is an expensive pay-per-view event
Combat sports forcing their fans to pay out big money to watch major fights is not a novel concept, as it’s been happening for years, both in the worlds of MMA and boxing.
However, while it’s one thing to expect fans to pay to watch high-level stars like Conor McGregor, Floyd Mayweather and Jon Jones to compete for world titles, should they really be expected to pay large amounts to watch Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley?
The honest answer is no. While Woodley was once a great fighter in the UFC, holding the UFC welterweight title for three years, he has never fought in the boxing ring before, and was always better known for his grappling in MMA.
And while Jake Paul has garnered a ton of attention thanks to his fame on social media, ‘The Problem Child’ is also not a proven top-level fighter. In fact, given that his wins in the boxing ring came over a fellow YouTube star, a basketball player and a retired MMA fighter, he could be seen as an amateur-level boxer.
If Jake Paul’s fight with Tyron Woodley was available relatively cheaply on pay-per-view, it’d be one thing, but in the US, it’ll cost fans $59.99 to watch – just $10 less than the cost of a major UFC pay-per-view.
And in the UK, the fight is only available through BT Sport Box Office – meaning British fans will have to wait up all night and still pay £16.95 for the privilege.
Basically, a fight like Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley simply isn’t worth paying big money for, particularly in the post-COVID age in which money is tight for many people.
#4 There’s a great UFC Fight Night card on at the same time
Due to the amount of hype around the Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley fight, fans of combat sports would be forgiven for forgetting that there’s also a UFC Fight Night card on the same night – an event that will likely clash with Paul vs Woodley.
Sure, this event isn’t a high-level UFC pay-per-view, but it’s still a great-sounding card with a bunch of excellent fights on offer. The main event of Edson Barboza vs Giga Chikadze, for instance, pits two of the top featherweights in the world against one another in a striking fans’ dream match.
And elsewhere on the card, highly rated fighters such as Kevin Lee, Makhmud Muradov and Alessio Di Chirico are also in action.
It’s likely that Showtime probably planned the Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley fight around the UFC’s schedule – and ensured it wouldn’t clash with one of the MMA promotion’s bigger events.
Given Paul’s profile, it’s natural that his fight is garnering more hype than the UFC Fight Night. But from a hardcore fans’ perspective? There’s no question that the better event will be produced by the UFC – meaning that Paul vs Woodley will be one to skip.
#3 The undercard isn’t all that great
Unlike the UFC – which gives plenty of thought to an event’s undercard and usually fills it with highly-ranked fighters – boxing undercards are usually nothing to shout about. Unsurprisingly, the Jake Paul vs Tyron Woodley event is no exception to that.
It features Amanda Serrano defending her WBC, WBO and IBO world featherweight titles against challenger Yamileth Mercardo, as well as two high-level British prospects in Tommy Fury and Daniel Dubois.
However, while the world title fight is a good one on paper, the only other fight likely to garner any attention is the one involving Tommy Fury, as he has been named as a potential future opponent for Jake Paul.
Unfortunately, Fury hasn’t been matched with a boxer – instead, he’s facing Anthony Taylor, a fighter better known for a middling MMA career rather than his skills inside the squared circle.
Basically, unless you’re a hardcore boxing fan who follows Amanda Serrano, this undercard isn’t worth bothering with – meaning that the event is a one-fight show. And when you consider that fight is a social media star boxing an MMA fighter, it simply isn’t worth watching.
#2 Tyron Woodley is probably shot as a top-level fighter
If Jake Paul were fighting an opponent at the top of his game – say UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, who has also been called out by ‘The Problem Child’, then perhaps this event would have been worth checking out. However, while Tyron Woodley is a far superior striker to Paul’s last opponent Ben Askren, the truth is that he was still more well-known in the UFC for his grappling.
And more to the point, ‘The Chosen One’ is hardly in his prime at this point. In fact, he hasn’t won a fight since his victory over Darren Till, which came way back in September 2018.
It’s true that Woodley hasn’t been losing to scrubs. In fact, Usman, Colby Covington, Gilbert Burns and Vicente Luque might be the four best welterweights in the UFC right now. However, all four of them thoroughly whitewashed Woodley.
Add in the fact that ‘The Chosen One’ is now 39 years old, so it’s probably safe to say that he is past his prime at this stage.
Can a past-his-prime Woodley defeat Jake Paul? It’s definitely possible. However, given the way he washed out of the UFC with four losses in a row, is it worth parting with money to see ‘The Chosen One’ compete at this stage? Unfortunately, it’s probably not.
#1 Jake Paul is not a real fighter yet
The biggest reason for fans of combat sports to give this event a miss is that simply put, Jake Paul isn’t worthy of the attention and hype that he is getting.
‘The Problem Child’ may be an entertaining character in terms of his social media presence. He may even end up doing some good for the world of MMA with his constant push for better fighter pay – even if his intention is probably more based around riling up UFC President Dana White.
But from a fighting standpoint, Jake Paul just isn’t proven or skilled enough to warrant headlining a big-time pay-per-view event. His three professional wins have come over a fellow YouTuber, a basketball player and a retired MMA fighter, who recently had hip surgery.
While he has shown he’s got power in his hands, boxing fans have already been making fun of the form he showed in a recent training session that was uploaded by Showtime.
Jake Paul is clearly a talented athlete, but is he really 'on a trajectory to become the biggest prizefighter in the world' as he likes to claim? If that’s really his goal, then he needs to fight larger, more proven opponents than former MMA fighters that he outweighs.
And until he does that, then it’s probably worth giving the events that he’s headlining a miss – starting with this weekend’s one.
