After Vitor Belfort knocked out Evander Holyfield last year inside the boxing ring (see it again here), the former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight champion called for a fight against Jake Paul. In fact, he got Triller co-founder, Ryan Kavanaugh, to sign off on the $30 million offer to make the fight happen.
Paul, however, wasn’t too interested in the fight, claiming that Triller didn’t have the funds to back up that challenge. And by the looks of it, he may have been right all along. Hasim Rahman Jr., however, claims Paul was never going to take the fight regardless because he was ducking “The Phenom” from the start.
“It is more-so about proving a point of why fake Paul was scared,” Rahman Jr. recently told The Schmo. “He don’t want to fight Vitor — he declined that. They put $30 million on the table for them to fight and he didn’t want to take that.
“And then now he didn’t want to fight me,” Rahman continued. “So, these two guys that Jake Paul is obviously ducking and obviously scared of, now we going to fight. I don’t think any way the fight goes, I don’t think Jake is going to be in a hurry to get in the ring with either one of us.”
Rahman Jr. and Paul were set to face off against each other last month before the fight was called off days before the event after Paul claimed Rahman Jr. was having issues with his weight. Rahman Jr. — the son of the former Heavyweight boxing champion, Hasim Rahman — confirmed the issues, but says Paul still could have done his part to save the fight by agreeing to a heavier weight.
But, Rahman Jr. has since moved on from that debacle to ironically enough land a boxing match against Belfort. The two will throw down on Oct. 15, 2022, in Sheffield, England. in one-half of a double main event for the next DAZN X Series.
As for Paul, he will also be taking on a former UFC champion when he goes toe-to-toe against the ex-Middleweight kingpin, Anderson Silva, on Oct. 29, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona. And who knows, perhaps the winners of those two bouts can face off against each other down the road.