When Jake Paul nixed his scheduled fight against Gervonta \u201cTank\u201d Davis, he immediately began searching for alternative opponents so he could still compete before 2025 was over.<\/p>\n
Paul eventually landed on two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, but that fight only came together after former UFC champion Francis Ngannou passed on the opportunity. While Ngannou said he felt disrespected by the offer, Paul\u2019s business partner Nakisa Bidarian admits he still doesn\u2019t totally understand why that fight didn\u2019t come together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole situation with Francis was very confusing to me,\u201d Bidarian said at the Jake vs. Joshua post-fight press conference. \u201cHe\u2019s done a couple of interviews back and forth on terms of how he thought about our conversation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Francis is a revolutionary when it comes to fight sports. He stood up against the UFC. Showed what kind of man he is. This process, again, was just a little bit confusing for me given who I know who he is as a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
The question about Ngannou was raised when comparing Paul\u2019s performance against Joshua to the same fight Ngannou had in his second professional boxing match back in 2024.<\/p>\n
Ngannou ultimately suffered a brutal second-round knockout after Joshua blasted him with a punch that sent \u201cThe Predator\u201d crashing to the ground in a heap.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Paul managed to make it to the sixth round, although he arguably evaded action far more than he engaged in it while throwing just 56 punches and connecting with only 16 during the fight with Joshua (per CompuBox).<\/p>\n
The result was still the same after Joshua broke Paul\u2019s jaw with a brutal right hand that ended the fight.<\/p>\n
Still, Bidarian believes the loss was more about Paul giving up so much size to Joshua than actually being beaten by the superior boxer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a great game plan and preparation, unbelievable heart and the reality is Jake lost because of the size difference, not because of the skill difference,\u201d Bidarian said. \u201cAJ was hanging on that neck, pushing him down. When you have someone that heavy constantly doing that, it does suck the energy out of you.<\/p>\n
\u201cAJ talked about taking out the man\u2019s soul. He didn\u2019t take out his soul. He did take out his energy and that\u2019s when he was able to get the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jake Paul nixed his scheduled fight against Gervonta \u201cTank\u201d Davis, he immediately began searching for alternative opponents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6102,913,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-328643","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-news","10":"tag-latest-news","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}