Jake Paul will beat Nate Diaz on Saturday.
The question is: How many more Nate Diazes can Jake Paul beat?
Paul-Diaz—a matchup between Paul, the former YouTuber turned boxer, and Diaz, the former UFC star—will be an event. The seats inside American Airlines Center will be filled. The energy in the building will be electric. The roars for Diaz when he walks to the ring will be loud. The boos for Paul will be echoing.
The buzz will be good.
The fight, unfortunately, probably won’t be.
Diaz can’t beat Paul. No way. No how. No shot. This isn’t a criticism of Diaz, a future UFC Hall of Famer (or at least he should be). It’s a reminder—again—that boxing and mixed martial arts are entirely different sports. Paul, 26, is a boxing novice. But he is a boxer, one who has lived the lifestyle for the past 3½ years. Diaz, now 38, spent nearly two decades in the UFC and has no boxing experience.
As Esquiva Falcão, a middleweight contender who sparred with Diaz in June, said, “Boxing is not for him.”
The money is. Diaz will likely earn a career-high payday against Paul. The event is already the second-highest recorded live gate for a combat sports event at American Airlines Center, per Paul’s team. Pay-per-view sales are tricky to predict—more so with the fight coming a week after a thrilling showdown between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.—but it’s reasonable to expect a low six-figure buy rate, which should send both Paul and Diaz home with healthy seven-figure purses.
That is, by any definition, a roaring success. Pay-per-view numbers have cratered in recent years. Piracy is an issue. Poor matchmaking is a bigger one. There are the occasional hits, like the 1.2 million buys Gervonta Davis–Ryan Garcia generated or the reported 700,000 who bought Crawford-Spence. And Canelo Álvarez remains a box office star. But most pay-per-views fail. Some catastrophically.
Paul-Diaz won’t, which is a credit to Paul’s ability to self-promote and Diaz’s passionate fan base. Thursday’s press conference, before it devolved into an ugly mess of homophobic slurs, offered evidence. Paul rolled in with a super-sized robot—the Problem Bot—behind him and immediately began poking Diaz. “He’s never been hit by someone like me,” Paul said. “He’s going to come in swinging. … I’m going to weather the storm and knock him the f--- out.”
The boos from the pro-Diaz crowd only emboldened him.
“He throws water bottles at innocent people on the street,” Paul said. “He chokes them out and talks a lot of s---. I’m going to bully the bully. This little guy over here that you love so much, he’s going to be dead on Saturday night. I’m going to finish his career. Boo yourself, peasants.”
Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports
Paul smiled as he spoke. He appeared to enjoy the negativity. And why wouldn’t he? Ten years ago, in a UFC cage, Diaz was dangerous. On Saturday the former 170-pound MMA fighter will climb up to 185 pounds and challenge Paul (6–1 in his fledgling boxing career) in a sport he is largely unfamiliar with. It’s why Paul, after losing a competitive fight against Tommy Fury last February, showed no interest in the rematch. He knew Diaz, whose UFC contract recently expired, was available. And Paul wanted to fight him.
He will, but how many more Diaz-like fighters—defined here as popular mixed martial artists with limited (or no) boxing experience—are out there? He has gone through Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva. Paul would love to fight Conor McGregor, but it’s unlikely Dana White would put McGregor, still wildly popular among UFC fans, in the ring with Paul. Paul has rejected suggestions he face his brother, Logan, a one-time boxer who has shifted his interest to professional wrestling. The most compelling matchup for Paul would be KSI, the British YouTuber who defeated Logan in his pro debut and has carved his own path on the influencer boxing circuit. The two have been sniping at each other publicly for years. In October, KSI will challenge Fury in an attempt to do what Paul could not. After that, a showdown with Paul could be worth millions.
“I’m not looking forward to it,” says Logan, now a business partner with KSI. “The KSI and Jake beef is real. They really don’t like each other, which is a shame because I love them both. However, I did tell [KSI] that I would be in my brother’s corner for that fight. He’s my blood. I’ve been with him my whole life, and it’s only right that I support my brother. But I am not looking forward to the fallout of that fight. Hopefully they make up afterwards and can once and for all figure out who is the best at this sport.”
The best between them, of course. For all the talk about Paul competing for a world title—talk that primarily comes from him—this is his lane. Against faded former UFC fighters. Against influencers. Against aging boxers. A rematch with Fury, which Paul claimed earned him $30 million, makes sense. A showdown with Canelo does not.
Paul-Diaz will be fun. It won’t be high level. It’s not supposed to be. Diaz will make it interesting because Diaz always makes fights interesting. He will be aggressive early. “I’d rather the fight be three rounds,” Diaz said. He will throw a lot of punches. Some could be illegal. But Diaz will likely tire. He will slow. And Paul, who has proven to have crunching power in his right hand, will eventually unload it.
Nate Diaz will be Jake Paul’s next victim.
When it comes to former UFC stars, he may be his last.
