By Dane McGuire
Love him or hate him. Jake Paul earned some credibility by facing a true boxer in Tommy Fury, despite a loss.
Paul went the distance with the brother of ‘The Gypsy King’ Tyson Fury in what was a split decision. Fury won on the cards 76-73, 76-73, while the third score was 75-74 for Paul.
Fury said after the victory:
“For the past two and a half years, this is all that’s consumed my life,” Fury said afterwards. “Broke rib, denied access [to the United States]. Everybody thought I was running scared. Tonight, I made my own legacy. I am Tommy Fury. I want to dedicate this fight to my new baby girl Bambi at home, my misses, I love you, I can’t wait to see you. This fight was for you.
“All the way through these two and a half years, I had a dream, I had a vision that I would win this fight and no one believed me. Now I can stand up and everybody can take note. I had pressure on my shoulders and I came through. This to me is a world title fight. I trained so hard for this. This was my destiny, this was my fate.”
Fury’s jab was a problem all night and Paul also failed to follow up on a knockdown in the final round.
“I think that was a part of the reason it was tough for me to get my best shots going, just me setting them up,” he said. “I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t have that energy.
“So I guess that happens. I felt like this in the first Tyron Woodley fight when we went all eight rounds, I just felt kind of flat. But obviously that fight, I just was able to pull it off, but it happens in the sport sometimes in these big moments, I guess.”
Paul added that a rematch is on the table as opposed to facing fellow YouTube star, KSI.
“KSI has yet to fight a real opponent, so we don’t even know his actual skill level.Obviously, that’s still a massive fight. But I’m gonna go back for this rematch,” Paul said.
“I just talked to Tommy back in the medical room, and he’s like, ‘Let’s go, let’s do it again.’ And and he’s down for it. So I think that that will be the focus first and foremost. I’m gonna prove that I can go and fight a better fight than I did tonight and get that W,” he continued.
Paul reiterated that the defeat was not as much due to being outperformed by Fury but his own energy level.
“I think he was just really well prepared, and I think it was more so a reflection of my own performance versus him being super outstanding,” Paul said. “I couldn’t get my momentum going like I wanted to, and I just felt kind of flat.