Boxing’s circus freakshow is bigger than ever and we have to wonder how long it will take until it starts sidetracking people like Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Can we have one night of fighting where Jake and Logan Paul aren’t brought up, please?
Because it certainly didn’t happen on Saturday night during Triller’s Holyfield vs. Belfort event, where both Vitor Belfort and Anderson Silva expressed their desire to fight the Paul brothers. And it’s hard to blame them too much: it’s the biggest money fight for the least amount of effort. As Donald Trump told Junior Dos Santos during their Triller play-by-play, “Pick a nice easy celebrity.”
At least Vitor Belfort has a more difficult back up opponent in mind. After offering Jake Paul $30 million dollars to fight, he revealed he’d offer Saul “Canelo” Alvarez $40 million.
“$30 million for Jake Paul and $40 for Canelo,” Belfort said during the Triller post-fight press conference. “How can they say no to that? Winner take all. Or if Oscar, he wants to do it, he can be dead too.”
With Vitor Belfort, you know there will be no patty cake. “The Phenom” sounded legit angry at what Jake Paul was doing to the honor of boxing.
“Jake Paul, he deserves it,” Belfort said. “He’s choosing his opponents, he’s working with a guy [Nakisa Bidarian] who used to work with Lorenzo [Fertitta], our ex-owner. He’s picking his fights. Now he cannot say no to me. He gotta say yes. We gotta teach him a lesson.”
“If he says no, all his little fans, they gonna come — I’m gonna create a YouTube channel and they’re gonna have to come follow me. I’m gonna create a YouTube channel and I have three amazing athletes in my house and we’re gonna entertain all his fans. Because he doesn’t have morals, he doesn’t have family values. He doesn’t represent the fighters.”
“He’s just getting attention and somebody’s gotta give him the whip,” Belfort added. “And that’s me. I’m his father. I’m going to put him on my lap. He’s going to meet daddy. Big daddy. He gonna meet Big Daddy. You watch, I promise you. He gonna say ‘Big Daddy,’ that’s what he’s gonna call me. He’s gonna make a tattoo, ‘Big Daddy.’”
Vitor Belfort’s pressure proved to be too much for Evander Holyfield.
(via @OmarESPN) pic.twitter.com/wlR89gCjJC
— ESPN Ringside (@ESPNRingside) September 12, 2021
And Belfort sounded quite fixated on the idea, so don’t expect this call out to disappear down the memory hole.
“No if, when,” Vitor promised. “He’s gonna call me Big Daddy. That’s all. And he’s going to have to understand that this has levels. In life there’s levels, first class, second class, third class. That’s how tennis works.”
But if not Jake Paul? Then what?
“Canelo, $40 million,” Belfort declared. “It’s on the table. How do you say no to $40 million? Just think: Four zero. Oh my God. I’m down.”
That may sound like a lot of money to an MMA fighter, but keep in mind Canelo just walked away from a $365 million dollar deal with DAZN and earned over $40 million off a filler fight against Billy Joe Saunders in May of 2021. He’s also one of the few guys unwilling to entertain the idea of fighting the Paul brothers (so far), which is nice. Keep the circus as the sideshow, please and thank you.