The YouTuber turned boxer is still angling for a fight with Conor McGregor, and he has ‘billionaire real estate guys’ in the background ready to fund the whole circus.
2019 saw our first glimpse of the Paul brothers getting into boxing, but 2020 is the year they proved they’re not going anywhere. Fitting for a year that also featured the plague.
Jake Paul started the year off TKOing some random YouTube personality and ended it with a monster highlight reel knockout of former NBA star Nate Robinson in the co-main of the Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. pay-per-view. I don’t care who you are, that’s some impressive upwards business hustle.
Now his brother Logan Paul is set to box Floyd Mayweather in February (yeah, we don’t get it either), and Jake is trying to troll his way into a fight with none other than Conor McGregor.
The chances of that coming together according to UFC president Dana White? ‘Zero.’ But then again, didn’t the unimaginative White also put similar odds on Conor fighting Floyd? And if Jake Paul continues to track down and punk McGregor’s associates, who knows … something could go down for free on Twitter and everyone would lose out on an embarrassingly high amount of money.
You saw @jakepaul‘s angle. Now, watch ours.@dillondanis @BrendanSchaub #FoodTruckDiaries pic.twitter.com/ZNOaWMBP93
— Below the Belt with Brendan Schaub (@btbshowtime) December 17, 2020
How much money? Well, Jake Paul is offering Conor McGregor a $50 million dollar guarantee to face him. And he insists he’s already got the money lined up to make the deal happen.
“It’s real as f**k. Real as f**k,” Paul told TMZ Sports. “I’m backed by billionaires, real estate commercial billionaires. And we got proof of funds, I’ll show you. Billionaires. New York, Signature Bank. Look at this email. Signature Bank.”
Paul held up a phone to the camera to show off a letter from Signature Bank (which is indeed a serious player) confirming Paul’s mystery billionaire backer has $50 million liquid in their account.
The email reads:
To Whom it May Concern
I am writing you at the request of the principal above. Please be advised that he has been a long term client. His current banking relationship with Signature Bank has liquid balances in excess of $50MM.
Our overall experience has been satisfactory in every respect and he is deserving of your full confidence.
It’s not particularly surprising that there would be someone in the wings willing to finance a fight between Jake Paul and Conor McGregor into existence. McGregor vs. Mayweather made Floyd $280 million and Conor $130 million (with McGregor getting a $30 million guarantee).
Who knows how much McGregor would make off the backend of a Jake Paul fight, but it would undoubtedly be multiples higher than the $30 million he was estimated to have made against Donald Cerrone at the start of 2020. Even when you take into consideration the massive cut the UFC would take.
Look, I don’t want to spend all of 2021 thinking about Jake Paul vs. Conor McGregor any more than you do. But this is the world we live in. Like COVID, this YouTube brat isn’t going anywhere fast so perhaps the best option is to just laugh, make a deal, make the fight happen fast, and then get back to serious business.
And any time you want to despair, just think of the memes…
— Vidgeo (@thevidgeo) December 20, 2020