Jake Paul is personally paying his undercard fighters 50 per cent of their purses after his bout with Hasim Rahman Jr fell through and the Madison Square Garden event was cancelled.
YouTube star Paul was due to box Rahman Jr, son of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman, at the New York City venue last Saturday. However, the event was cancelled a week prior due to a weight dispute between the two Americans.
With Paul’s original opponent Tommy Fury having already withdrawn due to travel issues, the event was ultimately called off. Unified women’s featherweight champion Amanda Serrano was among the fighters set to compete, and Paul’s company Most Valuable Promotions has now declared that the YouTuber will monetarily compensate all undercard athletes – except for three who are having their fights rescheduled, including Serrano.
A statement released by Most Valuable Promotions on Saturday read: “The undercard boxers who were set to fight today as part of the Jake Paul & Amanda Serrano MVP event spent countless hours training both physically and mentally to prepare to fight on one of the biggest stages of their careers.
“These undercard fighters abided by the terms of their contracts and Jake and MVP are extremely disappointed that the event cancellation adversely impacted them.
“Amanda Serrano, Ashton Sylve and Brandun Lee are in the process of rescheduling their bouts against their respective opponents. All other undercard fighters of the event will be receiving a payment directly from Jake Paul of 50% of their contracted purse amount and are free of any contractual obligations to the promotion.
“We remain committed to ensuring fair fighter compensation and look forward to putting together our next event.”
Sharing the statement on Twitter, 25-year-old Paul added: “Today was supposed to be the day I fought a ‘real boxer’ at MSG. It wasn’t meant to be. My opponents were both frauds.
“I will be back. Much bigger fights ahead. Again I want to thank all of the undercard fighters. We got you.”
Paul was scheduled to fight Rahman Jr, 31, at 200lbs but accepted a revised weight of 205lbs. Rahman Jr then pushed for the bout to be contested at 215lbs, leading Paul to cancel the fight and event.
On Saturday, Rahman Jr staged his own weigh-in to prove that he could in fact have made weight at 205lbs. The American tipped the scaled at 206.6lbs.
