Jake Paul and Tommy Fury were scheduled to attend a special kickoff press conference to help promote their upcoming “The Truth” boxing pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Sun., Feb. 26, 2023 in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, but the former “Love Island” reality show contestant failed to appear, leaving “The Problem Child” high and dry.
So what happened?
“He sends his apologies for not being here in person, he is dealing with a private and personal matter at the moment,” promoter George Warren said during the one-sided presser. “Make no mistake, he will be here in due time to publicize and promote the event. We are planning to bring him in around 10 days before the event.”
Turns out his absence was neither private nor personal — he just didn’t want to go.
“I can clear that up in two seconds,” Fury told MMA Fighting. “Basically, Jake Paul signed up into the world of professional boxing and I am a professional athlete, a professional boxer. I always have been and [ask] any professional boxer and they’ll tell you this — no one breaks camp, mid to the end [of training camp] to fly all the way to Saudi Arabia, have a 10 minute press conference, fly all the way back to Manchester, complete my camp then fly all the way back to Saudi Arabia again the following week. Now why the press conference couldn’t wait until a week later on fight week is beyond me. Most big fights, they schedule press conferences on fight week. I don’t know what is going on there.”
Actually most big fights (like this one, for example) have a kickoff press conference after the bout is made official followed by a final press conference during fight week. Even Fury agreed to an early presser when he was first booked to face Paul back in late 2021, but then no-showed the event and blamed travel cops for interfering.
In addition, Paul vs. Fury was announced on Jan. 27, roughly a month before their actual fight, which left promoters with little time to assemble the usual press commitments. Whether or not the short window influenced Fury’s decision is unknown, but the fight is being offered on pay-per-view (PPV) and will need all the help it can get.
Especially after this report.
“I don’t know if he’s trying to play mind games or anything but that’s definitely not how it works,” Fury continued. “One man’s flying all over the globe, trying to get in the glitz and glamor, press conferences, whatever else, and one man’s in the gym training to annihilate this man. So I think the proof is in the pudding. You can see who the professional athlete is. I’m not interested in press conferences. I’m interested in completing my camp, which has been the best camp of my career and I’m ready to KO this man and get him out of the sport.”
Is it too much to hope for a double knockout?