Renowned combat sports journalist Ariel Helwani is tired of seeing MMA community crybabies go into meltdown every time Jake Paul wins a fight.
On Saturday, March 2, ‘The Problem Child’ scored his ninth career win with a first-round finish of Ryan Bourland in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Though he made quick work of his opponent, fight fans were unimpressed with the victory and quickly lambasted Paul for fighting another no-name journeyman.
Offering his take on the unsurprising backlash, Helwani suggested that Paul is fighting the appropriate opponents based on his experience level and that the only ones who seem to have something negative to say about it are bitter MMA fans.
“Jake Paul is stealing all the headlines. He starches Ryan Bourland. Everyone knew he was going to win. [Bourland] was not an impressive-looking guy even though he has a 17-2 record,” Helwani said on Monday’s episode of The MMA Hour. “He just didn’t quite look the part and you see all these people in the world of MMA that get so triggered by Jake and it’s interesting to compare the reaction by the MMA community as opposed to the boxing community which is just like, ‘Yeah, okay. Cool. He won. Let’s move on.’ It hardly has a ripple effect.
“I think part of that is because the boxing community recognizes that this is how boxing is, for better or worse. Ninth pro fight, tenth pro fight, you are fighting people like this. Go look at who Ryan Garcia fought in his tenth pro fight. Go look at Canelo, Usyk, Fury, and Joshua. It’s all these types of guys. That’s how boxing is. You can’t apply MMA logic to boxing logic. It’s a completely different format, but you see people so triggered by this. ‘He’s part of the problem’ and ‘He’s getting away with this.’ These are the same people who said, ‘Don’t fight MMA fighters’ and ‘Go fight someone your age and skill set.’ And then he lost that fight.”
The fight Helwani is referring to is Paul’s clash with the undefeated Tommy Fury, younger brother to WBC heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury. ‘TNT’ earned a split decision victory over Paul in their February 2023 meeting. It was also the first time that Paul had fought someone who was described as a “legitimate boxer” rather than ex-MMA stars.
It was Paul’s first attempt to hush some of his haters and establish himself as a serious star in the sport. Since then, he has earned back-to-back first-round knockouts against professionally trained boxers. Despite that, ‘The Problem Child’ is still facing constant attacks from the MMA community.
“That could have been the indictment, but now they’re saying, ‘Don’t fight these guys anymore. Go back to fighting the other guys.’ He can’t do anything right in their eyes,” Helwani added.
Ariel Helwani Dares MMA Media to Comment on Tyson Pedro’s Retirement instead of jake paul’s win
Another story that earned some attention, though not nearly as much as Jake Paul did, was the retirement of UFC veteran Tyson Pedro. The Aussie had won three of his last five but, following a loss to Vitor Petrino inside The APEX on Saturday, Pedro revealed that he would be laying down his gloves as it was no longer financially feasible for him to continue competing.
Fans were outraged to learn that an eight-year veteran of the UFC wasn’t making enough money to support himself or his family… Until Jake Paul won his fight a few hours later. Then nobody seemed to care about Pedro’s story anymore.
“If you are more fired up about Jake Paul beating Ryan Bourland in a boxing match,” Helwani said. “If you are making videos, sending tweets, and puffing your chest out… If you’re more fired up about that than what Tyson Pedro had to say in his post-fight interview after he retired and said that he essentially has nothing to his name after all the fights in the UFC. If you’re more upset about [Paul] and saying that he’s ruining the sanctity of boxing when you couldn’t give two sh*ts about boxing, you are part of the problem. You are the problem.
“If you want to be an MMA person commenting on this, comment on that. Comment on the Tyson Pedro clip. I dare you. I dare you to talk about that. I dare you to talk about the class action lawsuit. I dare you. So, save me the takes. Save me the tweets. Save me your things on how this is ruining combat sports. Comment on how the sausage is made on the other side of the fence.”