I couldn’t care less about boxing, but I would happily pay 50 dollars a month to watch Jake Paul get punched in the face.
YouTube boxing has been on the rise. Entertainers like KSI, Logan and Jake Paul, Deji and AnEsonGib have all stepped into the ring over the past couple years, fighting for the title of Least Accredited Televised Athlete.
But the truth is that Jake Paul is a gimmick. These fights are motivated by profit and reputation rather than skill and athleticism. Anyone who has watched his fights will tell you there’s little to no technical skill to Paul’s game. He’s just loud and easily profitable.
The New York Mets did the same thing with former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow. Anyone who’s watched a second of a Mets spring training game knows full well Tebow couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.
But he’s marketable. Tebow draws fans to the games and promotes the sale of ridiculously overpriced merchandise. The entire organization is well aware he won’t be making the major league roster anytime soon, yet he continues to inhabit a minor league roster spot.
This is where the problem lies: these gimmicks hinder the development and national exposure of genuine athletes. Tim Tebow is getting at-bats thanks to a sales pitch from the marketing team, and so is Jake Paul. He’s a marketable commodity.
Not a single soul who knows anything about boxing or mixed martial arts gives any real credit to Jake Paul’s athletic ability or technique. The attraction of these bouts lies in the drama that proceeds and follows.
The fight itself was about as exciting as…well…a New York Mets spring training game. He fought an under qualified ex-athlete who hadn’t even sparred in practice. Jake Paul is fourteen years younger than his opponent and put him down with relative ease.
To the average fan, these exhibitions are nothing more than fifteen minutes of mild entertainment. But to the diehard boxing enthusiasts, these kinds of gimmicks are insulting to the sport they’ve come to love.
“Although he’s brought recognition to the sport, he’s also minimizing the legacy of these athletes. People used to want to see the best boxers in the world, but Jake Paul has made it an entertainment fiasco,” Matt Rogers, second-year Conestoga College student and avid boxing fan said.
Boxing in particular was never my forte but I can confidently say I love nothing more than baseball. If the St. Louis Cardinals all of a sudden started fielding Vince Vaughn over at the hot corner, I’d be livid.
Sure, Fred Claus would probably draw some fans and assist in the team’s suddenly urgent financial crisis, but these actions shred the already fleeting integrity of the game.
Regardless of one’s stance on the sport of boxing, this is one of the most historically elite and respected sports in history. The list of boxing legends is extensive: Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Joe Lewis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Frazier, Jack Dempsey, Sonny Liston—these men are the pioneers of athletics!
So, it’s easy to imagine the disgust at Jake Paul’s presence on Mike Tyson’s main card. An exhibition bout between two of the greatest boxers of the last two generations having been proceeded by internet wank-stain Jake Paul is understandably frustrating.
Why people continue to give the Paul Brothers attention I will never understand. Honestly, they’re just Kardashians who couldn’t convince anyone to give them a TV show. In fact, Jake even got fired from one.
Sure, there’s some entertainment value in these fights. Believe me, I’m just as excited to see KSI rupture Jake Paul’s spleen as much as the next fan.
But in the grand scheme of things, this isn’t sport and to have that expectation going into it would be nothing more than an insult to the pioneers who shaped our idea of the sport.
