Jake Paul Drops Masvidal Callout, Moves On To … Derek Brunson?

A lot of people have been calling out Jake Paul lately. Off the top of my head, you’ve got Jorge Masvidal, Tommy Fury, Vitor Belfort, Anderson Silva, Michael Bisping, Paddy Pimblett, Nate Diaz, Tyron Woodley, and Derek Brunson over the past month alone.

It’s not surprising that everyone wants a Paul-fueled red panty night. But there are still some surprises in who Jake ends up responding to.

“The Problem Child” recently called on UFC president Dana White to sign off on a fight with Jorge Masvidal. With Masvidal under contract with the UFC, there’s no crossover boxing event without White’s say so … something he’s definitely not interested in giving. So Paul recently turned to another option … Derek Brunson, who won his main event fight against Darren Till at last week’s UFC Vegas 36 event.

“Dana admitted this morning that I would destroy ‘170’ pound Masvidal,” Paul wrote on Twitter. “So Dana will you give Brunson permission to make some real money? Dana?”

It didn’t take long for Brunson to respond, declaring “This ain’t Disney, Jake Paul. I’d cook you!”

Of course we doubt a Brunson vs. Paul fight is in our future. This is probably just part of a larger ploy from Jake Paul to position Dana White as the bad guy refusing to let his fighters make a big boxing payday. White implied the 195 pound Jake Paul only wanted to fight Masvidal because he’s a 170 pound welterweight, so now he’s calling out a 185 pound fighter in Derek Brunson. The idea isn’t to actually get a fight with Brunson but strip away White’s excuses so it’s obvious the UFC president just doesn’t want to keep feeding the flame that is the Paul brothers boxing circus.

White has previously said the world is getting bored of the Paul brothers, and that may be true: Logan Paul vs. Floyd Mayweather pulled somewhere around a million buys while Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley sold 500,000. Them’s still some gangbusters numbers (Affliction MMA got the UFC sweating for a hot minute when it managed to break 175,000 buys on its second event), but there’s a big question on whether these numbers will continue to drop in a big way moving forward.

“The schtick is getting old,” White said at the start of August. “I think for him to get the media back, he’s gonna have to fight somebody. They’re tired of the schtick. ‘Hey, it’s me, I weigh 190, and I want to fight these guys that weigh 170, 155, and they’re wrestling, and they’re 40 f—king years old, and they haven’t won a fight in three f—king years.’ If he wants to be taken seriously now by the real media, I think he needs to fight a real fight.”

White’s suggestion to Jake Paul: box Anderson Silva. Because no one under UFC contract is getting special permission to fight Paul any time soon.