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The Jake Paul vs. Hasim Rahman Jr. fight on August 6 was canceled recently, with Paul's camp claiming Rahman Jr. tried to move the agreed upon fight weight up from 200 to 215 pounds. According to MMA ref and commentator 'Big' John McCarthy, the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy considering Jake Paul's past weight advantages.
In a new episode of Weighing In XTRA, McCarthy said:
"If you're Jake Paul, you've fought all these guys that were 170 pounders for their entire career. Now you're finally fighting someone that's in your basic weightclass. And now you're putting weight restrictions on him because he can only weigh so much the night of the fight? ... It's mind games. It's tricks. You've seen it before, you've seen this crap where there's more things going on in the back than the other fighter has to deal with. It's all part of screwing with somebody. Japan used to do it all the time. Jake Paul's now doing it."
"When you look at Rahman, and you look at his last fight where he got knocked out, and how much time there was between that knockout and for him to actually have a camp. Because there were people I know around his camp. And he wasn't looking good. And there's reasons why he wasn't looking good. And you look and you go 'Hey, is this a fight that should sell out Madison Square Garden?' No, it's not. It's a gimmick fight."
Watch John McCarthy give his take on the Paul vs. Rahman Jr. cancelation below:
McCarthy is right that Paul is known for picking smaller, older opponents. With Rahman Jr. he picked a heavier opponent for the first time, but didn't give him the time to make weight properly. As McCarthy noted, Paul also booked him immediately after a bad TKO loss two months earlier. Every advantage was tilted in Paul's favor but when one threatened not to, he canceled the fight.
Dana White blames Jake Paul vs. Hasan Rahman Jr. cancelation on poor ticket sales
According to Dana White, the 'gimmick fight' wasn't generating the kind of ticket sales Jake Paul was hoping for, and that's why the bout was called off with the weight controversy as an excuse. During the UFC 277 post-fight press conference, White said:
“I think they sold under a million dollars in tickets. And it costs $500,000 to turn the f***ing lights on at MSG. That’s what I think. Not to mention hotel rooms in New York and transportation and everything else is very expensive.”
Jake Paul fights at 190 pounds normally, and accepted the fight against Hasim Rahman Jr. at 200 pounds. Stipulations were added to the contract specifically to avoid Rahman Jr. coming into the fight heavy, because even ten extra pounds is already an entire weightclass worth of difference in boxing.
Fifteen extra pounds on top of that is certainly enough to stop a normal fight from being sanctioned. If Paul was looking for an excuse to call the fight off, Rahman Jr. certainly gave him a legitimate one.
