Paul claims he’ll give the winnings to Serrano should she walk away with her hand raised on Saturday night.
Jake Paul is no stranger to a friendly wager in the combat sports world. Paul famously made a tattoo bet against former UFC champion Tyron Woodley ahead of their boxing match last August, wherein the loser of their fight had to get “I love [winner’s name]” tattooed on their body. After dropping a decision to Paul, Woodley balked on the follow-through, but ultimately went ahead with it, resulting in a rematch several months later. Woodley lost that fight via 6th round knockout.
Paul went on to try and parlay his gambling prowess into a bet with UFC president Dana White, offering White the chance to put the ‘Problem Child’ in the Octagon for a professional MMA bout, providing White increased minimum UFC fighter pay to $50k, guaranteed fighters a 50% revenue split, and provided long-term health care to UFC athletes. Unsurprisingly the two sides didn’t manage to reach a deal.
In Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, however, it seems Paul has found a much more willing bargaining partner. Paul and Hearn have been working together for the past several months to promote the upcoming boxing superfight between undisputed (and unbeaten) lightweight champion Katie Taylor, and undisputed featherweight champion Amanda Serrano—with Paul representing Serrano, and Hearn representing Taylor.
At a recent press event, Paul offered Hearn a chance to raise the stakes beyond mere wins and losses. And while Hearn quickly made it clear that he’s “not having a tattoo,” after some hemming and hawing over Paul’s offer for the $500,000 in jewelry that he was wearing, the two men eventually settled on a $1,000,000 bet over the outcome.
How confident is @JakePaul that @serranosisters will win on Saturday night? Well, he’s willing to put $1 million dollars on the line with @EddieHearn… pic.twitter.com/wwawXWQxnf
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) April 28, 2022
At the end of the press conference, Paul told Hearn that “when Amanda wins, I’m giving your million dollars to her.”
Serrano vs. Taylor takes place this Saturday night, April 30th, at Madison Square Garden in New York and will air live on DAZN. A title unification bout between super-middleweight champions Franchon Crews-Dezurn and Elin Cederroos is also planned for the event.