Floyd Mayweather wanted to ensure Jake Paul didn't climb in the ring or talk negatively about him while he worked on commentary for the co-main event of his fight with Deji.
Paul was brought in by promoters Global Titans Fight Series to provide guest commentary for Tommy Fury's exhibition bout with Rolly Lambert, and seemed uncharacteristically keen to stay out of the ring when he clashed with the Brit after the fight. But in a new YouTube video, it appears the reason for that was that it was an insistence of Mayweather's that he stay out of the ring.
The YouTuber-turned-boxer was then, he claims, told that during his role on commentary that he couldn't badmouth the 50-0 legend ahead of his bout in the main event. However, that ultimately wasn't enough to satiate Mayweather, and Paul was asked to leave the venue.
"Floyd wouldn't walk out of his locker room unless I wasn't in the arena," Paul said, before his manager Nakisa Bidarian added: "They came to us earlier in the night and said 'do you guys promise not to jump into the ring at the end of fights? I said 'absolutely, Jake has nothing but respect for Floyd's legacy, he would never do that'.
"Then they asked us if we'd give our word that he's not going to talk smack about Floyd, and I said 'absolutely, he won't talk smack about Floyd'. Then they came out and said 'Floyd is not going to fight if Jake Paul is here, so I think Jake, for the benefit of the fans, rather than making a stink, is going to go home to his girlfriend Julia and have a great last night in Dubai."
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Paul then asked Bidarian what would happen if he were to just stay in his ringside seat, given that he was an invited and advertised guest for the show. "They were like 'we're not going to have a fight,' so I said, 'Alright, alright, I'll leave'," he explained, eventually heading back to his hotel.
The feud between Paul and Mayweather began during the build-up to his brother Logan's exhibition bout with the boxing legend last year. During the pair's launch press conference, the younger Paul brother took Mayweather's hat, leading to a physical exchange between the two.
