Jake Paul changed his tune after Saul “Canelo” Alvarez softened his stance on a potential fight with the social media star-turned-boxer.
“Why the [expletive] would I give him the payday? When I beat him it would be the same bullshit and lies…that Canelo was too small and Jake Paul paid him off,” Paul said in a post on X, quoting a report of Alvarez’s motivation in potentially accepting Paul’s challenge.
Last week, Alvarez admitted to having watched the Paul-Mike Tyson fight despite saying earlier he wasn’t interested in watching it.
“You know, I feel sad about what I saw from Mike Tyson,” Canelo told reporters, per talksports.com. “Because at his age and everything, he can’t do that kind of stuff.”
Asked if Tyson’s loss motivated him to take on Paul’s challenge to a boxing match, Alvarez did not shut the door like he used to.
“I [did] think about it when I saw the fight when I see that injustice,” Alvarez told reporters. “But we’ll see.”
Was Jake Paul’s Canelo Challenge Just a Publicity Stunt?
Paul’s response was a stark contrast to his audacity to challenge the reigning WBA, WBC and WBO super middleweight champion in the lead up to the Tyson fight and after he beat the 58-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion.
“Canelo needs me, so I’m not even going to try and call him out,” Paul said in the post-fight interview with MMA journalist Ariel Helwani. “He knows he wants a payday. So, he knows where the money man is at.
Before beating Tyson, Paul said he wanted to fight Alvarez in the cruiserweight division. Alvarez weighed in at 168 lbs. when he defeated Berlanga.
“Me vs. Canelo at 200 pounds for the cruiserweight championship of the world is the biggest fight, arguably even bigger than me vs. Tyson,” Paul said on the Timbo Sugar Show before the Tyson fight. “It makes so much sense. Canelo is on his way out. He’s going to want a payday and I want to show the world all the [expletive] I’ve been talking about beating Canelo is actually true, and I’ll have the biggest upset in the history of boxing.”
Now that Alvarez is considering accepting Paul’s challenge, the YouTube star is finding reason not to fight him.
The 34-year-old Mexican champion holds a 62-2-2 record with 39 knockouts.
On the other hand, Paul has an 11-1 record with seven knockouts. But the quality of his opponents is questionable because he fought crossover fighters and boxers who were past their prime.
Canelo Alvarez Slams Jake Paul’s Fight Against Mike Tyson
In that March interview with TMZ, Alvarez dismissed the Paul-Tyson fight as just a show and not a real boxing match.
“It isn’t [good for boxing],” Alvarez told TMZ. “Netflix is good for boxing, but for that fight especially, I think Netflix is doing something wrong there.”
“I think Netflix being involved, yes, it’s good, but not in that kind of fight. I think it’s more [of a] show than a fight. That’s what I think.”
Despite Alvarez’s dismissive view of the fight, Paul’s decisive victory over Tyson drew 60 million households and peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, Netflix and Most Valuable Promotions announced.
It also surpassed $18 million in gate attendance, which doubled the previous Texas gate record in both boxing and MMA, topping Alvarez’s record of $9 million.
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