Dana White may be turning his nose up at the idea of working with Jake or Logan Paul, but over at Bellator, Scott Coker sounds much more enthusiastic.
One of the principal questions coming out of Logan Paul’s recent exhibition boxing match against Floyd Mayweather has been, how long can Paul keep this whole circus going? The YouTuber-turned-pugilist has made it clear on multiple occasions that, far from a momentary grift, he considers himself a professional fighter and plans to continue his career in the ring for the immediate future, at the very least. But, are there really more big name boxing bouts out there for him considering he has yet to win a fight?
As a former standout highschool wrestler, one idea that’s been thrown around would be a potential move to mixed martial arts.
“I was grabbing him, yeah,” Paul told reporters, of his strategy against Mayweather after the bout (transcript via MMA Junkie). “I’d do MMA, for sure, because I am a good grappler. You know, I’m a wrestler at heart.”
UFC president Dana White has seemingly outright dismissed the idea of working with Paul at any point in the future, telling ESPN that “I would never do business with those guys, just no. It’s not what we do.” But, that doesn’t mean that future MMA ambitions have to die on White’s word.
Bellator president Scott Coker had his own opinions about Logan Paul’s future. And in the mind of the now-Showtime hosted promotional head, if Paul is interested in taking the jump over to MMA, Bellator would be more than willing to have him.
“The answer is absolutely,” Coker told MMA Fighting when asked if he’d give Paul a fight. “I think this kid has shown athletic ability to go in there with Floyd but also we know he’s a high school all-star wrestler from Ohio and I think they’re just getting better and better at combat sports. If he wanted to get into MMA, we would do it.
“The thing with Floyd, come on, how many people could do that? Go eight rounds with Floyd. You can’t tell me Floyd at some point in the fight [wasn’t] trying to take it to him and he couldn’t put him away. So to me that is a victory for Logan, as far as I’m concerned. As far as combat sports, I think Logan just upped his value. Was it a great fight? No, it was a lot of dirty boxing going on in that fight but let’s face it, Floyd usually goes and closes the gap and takes care of business and he didn’t do it this time.”
Coker added that he and Paul had actually spoken about the possibility two years ago, with Paul telling him at the time that he intended to focus on his boxing career. If, by some happenstance, either Logan or his brother Jake would like to try their hand at MMA, however, Coker wouldn’t be putting them immediately into high profile bouts against star talents.
“For now they want to focus on boxing but if the opportunity was there, I definitely would put them in the cage. When I say that, they’re not going to go out and fight in a real fight against a guy like Gegard Mousasi or somebody that has that experience. We’d treat them like any other fighter with the experience that they have and take it from there.”
At the moment, Jake Paul is set to take on former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley in the boxing ring, on August 28th. That bout follows the younger Paul’s recent win over Woodley training partner and UFC vet Ben Askren back in April. Even if Logan isn’t about to jump over to try his hand at some NHB action, he might take a cue from his brother and consider looking for a win by luring MMA talent into the boxing ring.