Jake Paul claims that the New York State Athletic Commission wouldn't allow him to replace Tommy Fury with a number of big name MMA stars.
Paul's last three fights have taken place in Florida, Cleveland and Georgia, all of which have considerably more lenient commissions than states like New York or California. And after Paul brutalised basketball star Nate Robinson in California in his second professional fight, there is likely to be more scrutiny on bouts involving novice fighters.
The YouTube star is no 5-0 as a boxer, having knocked out his four opponents, and was told that there were certain MMA fighters he couldn't fight in New York. But that script was flipped when he came up with his next opponent Hasim Rahman Jr, who is a 12-1 heavyweight that they believed was too tough of a test.
"They drove it a lot," Paul told Morning Kombat of the Athletic Commission's involvement in choosing his opponent once Fury pulled out due to visa issues. The Brit was 8-0, and having mostly fought around light-heavyweight or cruiserweight, was not a problem in terms of approval.
"There were certain names that they wouldn't approve, mostly MMA fighters. Then we were like 'alright we need a professional boxer'. But it sort of reversed because they were like 'we don't know if we're going to approve Jake for this'.
"They were just like everyone, this is a high-risk fight. This is insane, this is psychotic, no boxer is taking chances like this as early on in their career."
Mirror Fighting understands that Paul's team were unable to secure Anderson Silva, the former UFC middleweight champion, for an undercard fight when they initially opted to go with Fury last month. The tentative plan was to put the Brazilian in place as a sort of back-up option, but he has another booking coming up soon after and was unavailable.
It remains to be seen who the other options were, with Paul ultimately deciding to go for Rahman Jr. He has implemented an intensive rehydration clause to combat the massive size difference between the pair, but will still be weighing considerably lighter on fight night than his rival.
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The pair squared off at Madison Square Garden yesterday for a press conference, just under two years after they last met in a sparring session. Rahman Jr towered over Paul, and many fans noted the considerable size difference.
But he believes that the YouTuber has "stacked the deck" against him with the fight contract, which he signed at the first time of asking. "You're stacking the deck," Rahman Jr said. "You can't do that, that's out. You don't know how much I'm going to weigh on the night of the fight. You keep calling me a heavyweight.
"Why do you keep calling me a heavyweight, talking about how I'm a heavyweight when you're not fighting me at heavyweight? If you was really that, you would have fought me at heavyweight.
"There wouldn't have been no 'oh bring him down to 200lb and make sure he can't go over 210,' come on man. You saw I just weighed 224lb in April. Stop playing with me, you put a 10lb rehydration clause in the contract, shut your a** up."
