Jake Paul’s long-awaited MMA debut will take place in 2025.
The YouTuber-turned-boxer signed a deal to fight under MMA rules for the PFL in January 2023 – but almost two years later he’s still not booked a fight for his promotional debut.
Paul is technically a PFL fighter – even though he’s never fought in MMAPFL
On November 15, Paul is set to face Mike Tyson at the AT&T Stadium in Dallas in a fight that will see Netflix make their debut in combat sports.
PFL CEO Peter Murray claims that the 27-year-old will switch his attention from boxing to MMA and finally fight for the UFC’s biggest rival once he’s got by Tyson.
“We have a partnership with Jake and we’re looking forward to supporting him in MMA,” Murray told Bloody Elbow.
“We’re going to stage that mega event next year and more to come on that too, that will happen. There’s a number of opponents who continue to line up.
“Conceptually this event continues getting bigger and bigger. Jake has committed to take on a for real, legitimate fighter. So, it’ll be a spectacle.”
Paul recently claimed that it’s the lack of suitable opponents holding up his MMA debut.
‘The Problem Child’ offered Nate Diaz $15million to rematch him in MMA after they boxed in August 2023, but the UFC legend rejected the offer because he doesn’t want to fight for PFL.
“It’s just about finding the name,” Paul said during a media scrum last month.
“We have the money, we’re ready to go, we’re ready to make offers to people but they just have to be able to draw sales.
“And it has to be a fight where it’s, like, this is my first MMA fight.
PFL CEO Peter Murray is sure Paul will debut in MMA next yearPFL
There’s just the not-so-small matter of dealing with TysonGETTY
“So, I think I can beat Nate Diaz in my first MMA fight, it would be tough of course.
“It’s a 50/50 fight but I don’t want to go into something where I’m going to be outclassed like fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov in my first fight.
“It would be very, very serious. I would probably start working with either Sean O’Malley’s team or maybe Javier Mendez over in California.
“I would take it very, very seriously, I wouldn’t want to lose, and I take everything I do seriously so I would definitely go hard as f***.”
Tommy Fury recently claimed he’d be open to rematching Paul in MMA.
Tyson Fury’s little brother famously beat Paul in boxing last year, and now he’s teamed up with the interim UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall to learn about a new sport.
“I’m gonna smash his face in when I get good at MMA,” Fury said about Paul.
“I’ll beat him in boxing and the cage. Big useless p****.
“I reckon a year, year-and-a-half, two years of training, until I’ll beat him in a fight no problem in the cage.”
Murray won’t want to go along with that timeline, so Paul will almost certainly face someone else in his PFL debut before potentially rematching Fury down the line.
