Jake Paul has once again insisted that he "single-handedly" saved boxing's mainstream appeal when he came into the sport in 2018.
Prior to taking his first white collar fight in 2018, Paul was a famous YouTuber and Disney Channel star with an athletic background that included wrestling and playing football in high school. But he has taken to boxing quickly, stopping British YouTuber Deji in his debut before turning professional in 2020.
He has since gone 5-0, including knockout wins over MMA world champions like Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley, and sold millions of pay-per-view streams for his fights. But he has drawn the ire of fans with his claims that he brought boxing back from obscurity after Floyd Mayweather's 2015 retirement and brief return in 2017.
"I think this is why boxing was such a dying sport before I came into it," he said during an explosive appearance on The MMA Hour earlier this week, speaking about fighters not being willing to face him.
"I literally saved the whole, entire sport, basically single-handedly along with some other heavyweights and some lightweights, but mostly because of me boxing was saved.
"And I'm starting to realise what the problem was, it's all of these fighters who don't want to man up and actually make these fights happen. That's why you don't see the biggest fights.
"F***ing Tyson Fury is afraid to fight [Anthony] Joshua. Tyson Fury is afraid to fight [current unified champion; Oleksandr] Usyk. Why hasn't Gervonta Davis fought Devin Haney? Gervonta and Ryan Garcia? Why aren't these big fights happening? Because one of these parties is scared."
And he has again echoed that claim, telling reporters in New York at the press conference for his next fight that he is the reason boxing has regained ground on MMA in attracting fans. He is set to face Hasim Rahman Jr at Madison Square Garden on August 6; his first "legitimate" boxer who holds a 12-1 professional record.
"No-one was watching boxing," he explained when asked to clarify his statement. "There wasn't any hype around it. You'd watch occasionally the heavyweight fight or maybe Floyd [Mayweather].
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"But as soon as he retired everything got really boring and there was an era where there wasn't any fights that anyone heard of. No names were breaking out, it was a very stagnant period.
"So when I came in and switched the whole game up, brought in the social media element, brought 60million followers over into the sport, you see a difference and it's made an everlasting impact.
"There's so much momentum and now you see boxing taking over MMA. The MMA scene has been f***ing dead, the UFC hasn't been putting on any events that anyone is talking about, yet boxing is having massive fights back-to-back-to-back and it's been really fun to see, boxing is taking over MMA again, congratulations."
