Hasim Rahman Jr had his uncle on stand-by incase Jake Paul cancelled their fight over weight issues.
The 12-1 heavyweight had assured Paul's team that he would be able to make the 200lb cruiserweight limit for the first time in his career in order to save their Madison Square Garden headliner after Tommy Fury initially pulled out. But during weekly checks by the New York State Athletic Commission, he appeared to only be able to make around 214lb, and the bout was cancelled yesterday.
But before the fight was officially confirmed to be off, Rahman Jr offered one last effort to save the event, telling Paul's team that Muhsin Cason, a 10-0 cruiserweight, could step in. The fighter, who has sparred with Paul in the past, campaigns at cruiserweight, and was willing to step in on less than a week's notice to make the weight.
Cason, whose brother is former world heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, is very close friends with Paul's teammate J'Leon Love, and has visited the team's Puerto Rican training base as well as hosting a podcast with the ex-boxer. He has also sparred with other YouTubers such as KSI and Paul's first professional opponent AnEsonGib.
"It was an astronomical feat in and of itself from the beginning," Rahman Jr said of making cruiserweight, before revealing his plan for Cason. "When they called me to spar him I told them what my weight was, they knew what my weight was and that I'd have to lose about a pound a day for 30 days in order to make 200lb.
"With all that aside, still, they knew we had a replacement ready on the side whose been doing everything I've been doing this whole camp. The Muslim Boxer; Muhsin Cason, who campaigns at cruiserweight and wouldn't have had to drain himself.
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"He could have saved the show and Jake Paul could have fought a real boxer, but he don't want to fight a real fighter, he don't want to fight a real fight. He wanted to drain me down and fight a shell of me which I'm not going to allow him to do."
Paul has already claimed that when he and Cason sparred that he "beat his a**", and threatened to release the footage after Rahman Sr suggested the fight earlier this month at their launch press conference. But Cason replied at the time by insisting that the YouTuber was lying.
At least on paper, Cason would appear to be the better match-up for Paul than Rahman Jr. They fight at the same weight, and he has a considerably bigger following with almost 40,000 on Instagram to the 12,000 Rahman Jr had before the fight was announced and he shot up to over 236,000.
However, he wasn't interested in making that last-minute change, and Paul's Most Valuable Promotions ultimately opted to pull the plug on their Madison Square Garden date. It remains to be seen at this point when Paul will return to the ring after spending the entirety of this year on the sidelines, focusing his early part of 2022 on promoting Amanda Serrano.
