On Dec. 22, 2020, Jake Paul (Youtuber) presented his next opponent, Ben Askren (former MMA Fighter), while the flame was still hot after recently defeating retired NBA player Nate Robinson. Paul’s boxing career has been nothing short of a joke. He boasts about his undefeated record when he had nothing to brag about.
His first match against fellow Youtuber, Deji, went as expected from two amateurs who’ve never fought before. The fight was sloppy, sluggish and their lack of experience showed. Paul did win the match which boosted his ego enough to continue this pursuit of a “boxing career.”
His next fight against Nate Robinson was expected to go the other way, though he didn’t have any boxing experience he was a professional athlete and people believed that would be enough to take down Paul.
Robinson retired from the NBA in 2015 and hadn’t done much since then other than playing for some small basketball leagues for a couple years after. The fight proceeded and Robinson got knocked out in the second round by Paul.
The outcome was unexpected and though he won the disrespect continued with Paul. This is because professional boxers believed that by saying he’s bringing back boxing, he was disrespecting the art.
That’s why this fight against Askren was so special although he was a retired MMA fighter, and an ex-Olympian, he was still a fighter and so that’s why people thought he would destroy Paul due to his previous experience.
The moment came to where both fighters were in the ring, beef (to have a grudge or start disliking someone) had already been presented online with constant trash talks, and as quick as the fight started it ended instantly. Paul knocked out Askren two minutes into the first round.
Everyone was surprised with what had just happened. “He had to been paid to throw the match, a professional couldn’t have gone down that quickly,” was said by an uproar of crazy fans on Instagram in comment sections. Honestly it wasn’t that surprising seeing Askren lose, what was surprising was how early.
If you think about it, this was Paul’s domain though he hasn’t been in the boxing game for long. Paul had been training a lot longer than Ben Askren had been which in his training clips he’d been showing that he was half-heartedly trying in his workouts.
It was obvious that he wasn’t in shape and didn’t really care for much other than the money, other than that boxing is a different sport from MMA. In boxing there are 12 three minute rounds, while in MMA there are five five-minute rounds, so Askren didn’t have the conditioning to compete like a boxer on top of him being retired for a while.
This was evident in the fight of Connor Mcgregor vs. Floyd Mayweather where the dominant MMA fighter, Mcgregor challenged boxer Mayweather to his own game and lost to the aged legend. Although Paul deserves some recognition for shutting up his doubters he has no right talking the way he does until he has a real fight against a real fighter.
