Jake Paul assured of Silva’s help in building fighter’s association

Jake Paul and Anderson Silva at the official weigh-in of their October fight. | Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images

Jake Paul is ‘very confident’ that Anderson Silva will live up to his end of the deal in helping build a…


Jake Paul and Anderson Silva at the official weigh-in of their October fight.
Jake Paul and Anderson Silva at the official weigh-in of their October fight. | Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images

Jake Paul is ‘very confident’ that Anderson Silva will live up to his end of the deal in helping build an MMA fighter’s association.

A few days before their boxing match in late October, Anderson Silva and Jake Paul made a handshake deal. Paul proposed that if Silva lost, he’d help create an MMA fighter’s association to help competitors get better pay and better health care. “The Spider,” said ‘Deal’ and a verbal agreement was made.

The former longtime UFC middleweight champion ended up losing on the scorecards, but he’s yet to confirm whether or not he’s still on board with “The Problem Child’s” proposal. But for Paul, there is reason to believe that Silva will live up to his end of the deal.

“I’m very confident it happens, and Anderson will help,” Paul said recently on The MMA Hour. “I think he’s a man of his word, and this is needed. It’s been needed for so long. Right now we’re talking with lawyers to get everything set up and figure out the structure and start to ideate on what this union looks like and how it will be operated.”

For Paul, Silva’s involvement would be a huge deal in what he says is his cause to help fighters.

“I think that’s where people like Anderson Silva joining really helps because they respect him. I think that fighters, regardless of if they hate me or love me, I’m trying to help them. They just should see that because I’m continuing to help fighters nonstop. They should see the things I’ve done for Amanda Serrano, the situation she was in.

“I just want to help. So they can hate me, or not really even respect me, but we should be on the same team. That’s the whole point of this union — let’s band together and be strong as one. I might not even like a certain fighter that wants to be in the union, but it doesn’t matter. I’m putting my ego aside because this is going to benefit all of us.”

Paul has been going at it with the UFC and, particularly hitting at president Dana White for the long-standing issues on fighter pay.