Tom Aspinall predicts Jake Paul will upset Anderson Silva.
Paul (5-0) meets former UFC middleweight champion Silva (3-1) in the headliner of a Showtime pay-per-view event Oct. 29 at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz.
Amongst the MMA crowd, it’s a rather unpopular opinion. But the British heavyweight contender likes what he’s seen so far out of Paul, who’s coming off a knockout over ex-UFC welterweight champ Tyron Woodley.
“I think he’s got Anderson Silva at a good time,” Aspinall said in an interview with Midnite. “Silva has obviously got a lot of miles on the clock. But he also has a lot of skills, so it’s an interesting fight. Silva has got to be pushing 50 now, but the skills are still there, the body is still there. I think Jake Paul takes it. I think Paul should be able to outwork him, being the younger and fresher man, but you never know. Silva (is) getting a bit older and Paul’s young and hungry – and Jake Paul’s looked good. I don’t care what anybody says – it looks like he has got skills. So I think he wins that one.”
With Paul teasing a move to MMA, Aspinall thinks he could actually do quite well.
“I will say something that not a lot of fighters will say: I actually really like Jake Paul,” Aspinall said. “I like what he’s doing. He’s got a lot of eyes on the sport that would not be watching the sport before. I’m talking all the way across combat sports. I think he brings a lot of eyes to combat sports and he’s looked great boxing so far. He’s obviously a very athletic guy and picked it up really quick and he’d look great doing MMA, as well, I think.
“In my opinion, if he was given the right fights and brought on properly, had the right training – his mentality is great. So he could go far with it, definitely.”
