Jake Paul's mum raced to her son's side as he waged verbal warfare with Hasim Rahman Jr following the cancellation of their fight.
Paul announced last night that he was scrapping the entire Madison Square Garden card due to be staged next weekend and which also featured world champion Amanda Serrano. The YouTube star blamed his opponent for the cancellation, claiming Rahman Jr was refusing to cut any weight from his 215lb frame.
The fight was initially set at the cruiserweight limit of 200lb before Paul agreed to move it to 205lb, but he claims he baulked at the suggestion of fighting at 215lb given he normally weighs in at 190lb. Rahman Jr, on the other hand, questioned why he was not allowed a final week to lose as much weight as possible.
And after Paul and Rahman Jr had their say, the former's mum Pat Stepnick tweeted: "You're a p****, Hasim Rahman Jr". Rahman Jr issued an explicit reply, tweeting: "Somebody put something in this wrinkled bish mouth my zipper stuck, and we're going to see who da p**** when you run into my mam."
Paul stole a march on his rival by posting a lengthy video detailing his side of the story following the cancelation announcement. The 25-year-old said: "[This was] the biggest pay day of his life times 10 and he's fumbling it. For what? Because he knows he's going to get knocked out by me. The pressure starts to set in and it's exactly what happens with all these guys. I'm sick of it, I'm devastated and I apologise to everyone on the undercard. This is absurd but there's nothing I can do about it; I apologise to the fans and I'll be back at some point."
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Rahman Jr hit back, however, with a video of his own in which he claimed he had offered to fight for the minimum purse of $5,000. "Where in boxing do you see them cancelling fights a week in advance? I didn't even get my last week to get down as low as I could," he said. "I told this man, there are penalties involved, keep the purse, I will fight for the $5,000 minimum, that's how much it means to me and that's how much faith I had in knocking him out.
"I would have beat this man up with one hand like I did in the gym, but let him tell it he already beat my a** in the gym when I was 230lb. So if you beat me up when I was 230lb, what's the problem fighting me when I'm 215lb or 210lb?"
