Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions rolled into Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon to promote their first MMA event ever, Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano. But honestly, the event seemed more like an opportunity to bash UFC than sell Ronda vs. Gina.
Paul built his entire career off of trash talking Dana White and beating up the UFC’s discarded aging stars. That said, it was Ronda Rousey who really stripped the paint off the top MMA promotion during the press conference, accusing the company of losing their way, refusing to pay fighters a living wage, and sidelining White to maximize shareholder value.
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Jake Paul still got some licks in as well, suggesting that MVP was well positioned to take advantage of the UFC’s inability to book the big fights people want to see.
“MMA is in a weird position right now,” Paul said. “It’s the wild west and I believe we have a massive opportunity here to disrupt the whole space and to put fighters first, get them the pay that they deserve, the platform that they deserve, because I believe the UFC is dying and MVP is here to take over.”
During a scrum following the presser, Paul was asked about the ‘watered down’ UFC product.
“I think it’s been tough for them to create stars and the fights that they want for how little they’re willing to spend,” he said. “So they’re kind of at a bottleneck and that’s why I think we’ve seen fights that people aren’t super, super excited about and the biggest stars in the sport like Jon Jones and Conor McGregor [not] fighting on a consistent basis. And that was what made them so great in the beginning of their business: just massive, amazing fights all the time. And now they’re just not willing to spend money.”
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He also criticized Freedom 250, the UFC White House card that landed like wet trash on hot pavement. It features Ilia Topuria and Alex Pereira, but against consolation opponents. The undercard was a lazy hodgepodge of head-scratchers and ‘Dana White privilege’ guys.
“I think the White House itself will be the star,” Paul said of the event. “I was disappointed by the card. I think many fans were, just because there was such high expectations. I think if they weren’t hyping it for so long, maybe if they just announced it randomly, then people would be happy. But they just made it seem like it was gonna be the greatest card of all time. And it certainly isn’t.”
With MVP clearly interested in maintaining some sort of presence in MMA, an obvious question is if Jake Paul will eventually compete in the sport. To Paul, it wasn’t a question of if but of when … but as far as Francis Ngannou goes, Paul sounded more interested in a boxing bout.
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“100% I’ll do MMA at some point,” Paul said. “For my first fight, it’ll probably have to be against someone my own weight.”
“But I think I’ve made it clear in the sport of boxing that I’m down to to fight anyone. I took on Anthony Joshua, Mike Tyson, [Julio Cesar] Chavez, just all these people, Anderson [Silva]. So I’m really down to run it with whoever in the sport of boxing. I think me versus Francis would be massive.”
