It’s been a tough week for Jake Paul. Despite beating Anderson Silva in their boxing bout, the YouTuber turned combat sports superstar had to deal with a lot of people calling the win fake. And now, to add insult to injury, it looks like the Paul vs. Silva event under-performed sales wise in both tickets and pay-per-view buys.
In a new interview on his brother Logan Paul’s ImPaulsive podcast, Jake didn’t mince words about the ‘upsetting’ metrics coming out following the biggest win of his career.
“It’s weird,” Paul said. “Halloween, World Series, Sunday football … this is the worst time of the year to fight. But guess what, I had to fight. All my fights from now on will be in the summer. There’s no sports. There’s like this perfect gap in July, early August where there’s no sports. And by the way, all of my other fights were during COVID, when no one had anything to do, anything to watch.”
“I had to fight this year. I had to get it f***ing done, bro. I’m sick and tired of waiting around. Not only did I make zero, I lost like millions of dollars just running a goddamn organization with 15 employees.”
“I don’t know [how many PPVs were sold],” he said when asked by Logan. “I think it’ll probably go around like 200 to 300,000, really, which is kind of upsetting.”
In addition to blaming the busy sports schedule, Jake Paul also thinks the rumors that Anderson Silva had been knocked out twice while training hurt business.
“The pre-buys were going crazy up, up,” he said. “And on Wednesday when the news came out about Anderson saying he got knocked out or whatever, and the fight was in jeopardy and all this press came out, the pre-buys tanked all the way down. The general public sees that and thinks like ‘oh it’s not happening.’ Tommy [Fury] pulled out, Hasim [Rahman Jr.] pulled out. ‘Oh, Jake f***ng Paul can’t get an event together. This is done.’ It killed ticket sales. We were still selling, then that day, everything went to zero.”
There’s another possible explanation: people are just getting less interested in watching Jake Paul fight. If it ever was a real thing. UFC president Dana White has claimed in the past that Paul’s mystique as a pay-per-view draw was all smoke and mirrors.
“No matter what they tell you, he ain’t f***ing selling pay-per-views,” White told The Daily Telegraph after Paul’s first fight against Tyron Woodley in late 2021. “The brother did. Logan, when he fought Floyd Mayweather, they sold some pay-per-views. Triller ain’t selling jack s***. Those guys couldn’t f***ing give away pay-per-views.”
Funny enough, White offered a suggestion for how Paul could move some PPV units.
“If Jake Paul actually goes out and fights Anderson Silva, it’s a viable fight,” he said.
What do you think, PENN Nation? Are people tired of the Jake Paul sideshow? Or are a lot of people watching, but no one is paying? Let us know what you think in the comments below!