Jake Paul will take inspiration from Israel Adesanya 's fight against Anderson Silva when he faces the UFC legend next month.
Paul, 25, looks for his sixth professional win when he fights 47-year-old Silva in arguably his toughest challenge to date. The pair faced off for the first time ahead of their fight, with Silva being the first opponent of Paul's short-lived boxing career to have a size advantage over him. The fight will take place over eight rounds of three minutes with both men weighing 187lb, two pounds above the weight at which Silva reigned as UFC champion.
The YouTube star has taken note of his friend Adesanya's performance against Silva in their 2019 fight, in which Adesanya won by unanimous decision. Adesanya gave Silva some of his own medicine in the fight, encouraging him to throw strikes and insisting many of his shots were not having an effect on him. Paul said he will throw Silva's taunts back at him if he tries it in their fight.
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"I'll give it right back to him, just like Israel did. I think that throws him off, when he starts to taunt and then his opponent starts to taunt," Paul told ESPN. "He's not going to know what to do. I don't think he expects that from me, but I'm just as comfortable in there as him especially in the boxing ring. So if he's doing all this s*** [throwing up his arms] I'm not going to do that. I will fight my fight on my terms and I'm going to be in control for all eight rounds, until I get the knockout."
Since parting ways with the UFC two years ago, Silva impressed fans by beating former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in his first fought boxing fight for over 15 years. 'The Spider' has since knocked out fellow UFC legend Tito Ortiz and also fought Bruno Machado in an un-scored exhibition bout. Paul admitted that Silva is the toughest opponent he's faced so far despite their huge age gap.
"I think he's the definitely the most skilled boxer I'm going up against yet and he just beat a former world champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, schooled him for eight rounds," he said. "If I was to fight him, people would be like 'oh finally he's fighting a former world champion pro boxer' but guess what? Anderson beat the s*** out of the dude. He has so much experience, he's been on the big stage so many times, so it's not going to affect. What's great about this fight is, whoever has the most skill will win."
