By: Sean Crose
Things just haven’t been working out for Jake Paul lately. After Tommy Fury was unable to come to America to face the fiery cruiserweight on August 6th, Hasim Rahman Jr, son of former heavyweight champ Hasim Rahman, agreed to take Fury’s place. It certainly looked like it could be an interesting matchup, as Rahman has had an actual career as a boxer, as opposed to Paul’s previous opponents, all of which were novice boxers before facing him in the ring.
On Saturday night, however, Showtime announced that Paul’s pay per view fight with Rahman, which was supposed to go down at Madison Square Garden next Saturday night, has been cancelled. The reported reason why is that late replacement Rahman simply wouldn’t be able to make the weight. The question now is who Paul will end up facing next.
“First Tommy Fumbled and now Hasim Rahman Crumbled,” Paul tweeted. “These boxers are the most difficult people to work with and continually lack professionalism and confidence to fight me. I apologize to all of the of the other fighters on the card, our partners, our team and the fans.” Paul’s promotional outlet, Most Valuable Player, sent out a press release confirming the fight is not going to happen.
“On July 5th,” the statement reads, “Hasim Rahman Jr signed a bout agreement to fight Jake Paul on August 6th at Madison Square Garden at a maximum weight of 200 lbs.” The statement goes on to declare that Rahman weighed 216 pounds two days later and that his team made assurances that he would be able to make weight. “On Friday,” the press release continues, “Rahman submitted a weight check to the New York State Athletic Commission that demonstrated he had lost less than 1 pound since originally signing to take the fight 24 days prior.”
Paul then reportedly agreed for the fight to go down at 205 pounds. According to the press release, Team Rahman was given a new contract…and that’s when things really fell apart. “Upon receiving this new contract Saturday morning,” the press release continues, “Rahman’s camp indicated for the very first time that he planned to weigh 215 lbs at the official weigh-in and would not agree to weigh in at 205 lbs.”
Team Rahman then reportedly made it clear to Team Paul that the fight was off if it would not be held at 215 lbs, a full 15 lbs more than was originally agreed to. And that as they say, was that. “MVP and Jake Paul will not reward someone that has conducted themselves in such a deceiving and calculated manner,” the press release states.