Jake Paul’s manager Nakisa Bidarian says they are not interested in accepting the fight against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois. Bidarian says Jake’s immediate goal is to return to cruiserweight to become a world champion in that weight class.
It’s no big shock that Jake turned down Dubois’ offer to fight for his IBF title because it wouldn’t be competitive. He is not ready for a fighter like Dubois.
“Not Now” – Why Paul avoids Dubois
Bidarian doesn’t say who Jake will fight to become one cruiserweight champion because he would be outmatched against any of the existing champions. However, if the WBC puts one of its minor titles up for grabs, such as Diamond, Silver, or InterimPaul can potentially win if he is matched up against the right type of opponent. KSI or Salt Papi would be ideal. The downside is that Jake wouldn’t be taken seriously by hardcore boxing fans, but his followers don’t care.
World cruiserweight champions
– Gilberto Ramirez: WBA & WBO
– Jay Opetaia: IBF
– Noel Mikaelyan: WBC
Jake wants to capture a world cruiserweight title before moving up to heavyweight to challenge for a belt against someone like Dubois. Jake’s best chance to win a world cruiserweight title would be against the WBC champion Noel Mikaelyan. It is widely seen as weakest link among the three champions of the division.
Paul, 27, defeated former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, 58, last Friday in a fight that many fans felt was a theatrical production. Fans pointed out that Tyson pulled his punches to avoid injuring the youth battler Paul (11-1, 7 KOs), who has yet to fight a world boxer during his four-year career.
IBF champion Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) wanted in on the act to offer Jake a free title shot without him needing to earn the fight, because it was pretty obvious that the way his career was moved, he had no intention of following the normal rules of boxing.
Jake would probably never agree to fight a top 15 heavyweight contender or compete in a world title eliminator against someone like Martin Bakole, Agit Kabayel, or Zhilei Zhang. With Jake’s popularity, he didn’t have to work his way up to a title shot. We will give it to him.
“Jake’s feedback to me was, ‘I want to do that fight (with Dubois but) not now, but I want to do that fight,'” Nakisa Bidarian told Sky Sports about Jake Paul is not interested in facing IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois right now.
“To be a cruiserweight world champion, he wants to do that. The other thing (fighting Dubois) is to test the limits of expectations. Test the limits of what’s possible,” Bidarian said. “It’s not about the money. He’s made a lot of money since he was 18. It’s really about doing things that make you say, ‘Wow, that’s really successful.’ That’s what excites us.”
Jake defeated the unfortunate Mike Tyson by an eight-round unanimous decision in front of a huge crowd of over 73,000 fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The scores were 79-73, 80-72 and 79-73.
The sad part is that the Texas Commission sanctioned the Paul vs. Tyson fight as an official professional fight that counted in the record books, despite the match being two minutes long and both fighters wearing 14-oz gloves .
