Jake Paul Announces PFL Partnership – Wants Nate Diaz Next

Social media / YouTube Star turned professional boxer Jake Paul has certainly capitalized on his name recognition and his powerful right hand in the ring. And now, in addition to boxing Paul has partnered with the Professional Fighters League to increase their visibility, popularity and most importantly, make money for all involved.

Paul made the video announcement of his alignment with PFL on Thursday morning with the release of, what else, a YouTube video.

In the video Paul, who has amassed a 6-0  boxing record, that includes scoring a decision over MMA Legend Anderson Silva in an eight round boxing match in his last fight, enthusiastically went over his new involvement with the PFL,

Paul says he is now part of the organization that was founded by multi-millionaire venture capitalist Don Davis. Davis is the man who rebranded former “World Series of Fighting” into the Professional Fighters League (PFL) in 2017. That league is a smaller startup rival to the very powerful Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) circuit, which has dominated the MMA landscape nationally and worldwide for a decade.

Paul described his planned new official involvement at the highest level of the PFL, including what he described in his role as being in charge of looking out for the fighters themselves,

“I will be the head of ‘fighter advocacy’ and I’m gonna use my platform to market PFL fighters and introduce them to my fans worldwide,” Paul said on the video.

I personally will be deeply involved in making sure that the PFL is the best place in the world for fighters. As you guys know, I’ve been trying to increase fighter pay for all fighters worldwide. And with the launch of this new PFL ‘Super Fight Division’ our fighters will be receiving 50% of the revenue.”

Paul is alluding to UFC having dealt with fighters complaining for years that White and those in charge don’t proportionally share properly their massive profits with the fighters themselves.

Another intriguing aspect of Paul’s announcement is that he has offered another former UFC star, Nate Diaz a two fight deal. While Diaz never held a UFC championship, he’s a popular prominent fighter from the 2010’s who challenged one of the UFC’s all-time stars Conor McGregor and whom he split two fights against.

As Paul described in the video that offer would first be a boxing match with Diaz in a square ring and then, Paul would agree to fight Diaz the second fight in an MMA style bout. Paul said that would of course take place in the PFL 10-sided ring known as the “Smart Cage.”

It’s no secret that Paul has wanted to fight Diaz for the better part of two years, but Diaz was prohibited by UFC president Dana White and their organization from doing so due to their exclusive contract with him.

Paul has had a running feud with White for years over with Paul trying to disrupt UFC’s pay scale and get their fighters more money and more publicity to capitalize on their names and fame.

For his part, Diaz, is now a free agent MMA fighter, and he attended Paul’s boxing match with Silva in late October and may seriously consider Paul’s offer.

Paul has won all six of his boxing matches, however, he is yet to fight a legitimate boxer so far in his career. He has instead fought former NBA basketball player Nate Robinson, whom he kayoed with one punch, former MMA fighter and amateur wrestling champion Ben Askren  whom Paul also destroyed with a single punch. And, he beat former UFC champion Tyron Woodley twice, including thunderous KO in December 2021.

Paul has openly discussed and tried to fight on two previous occasions British cruiserweight Tommy Fury who is the half brother of WBC World Heavyweight Champion, Tyson Fury. However Tommy Fury backed out of the two separate scheduled pay-per-view bouts with Paul for December 2021 and again, in the summer this past year.

Paul has hinted previously that he would be willing to accept more money to fight Fury in the United Kingdom.

There is no question that Paul has leveraged his fame from the internet and social media into making millions of dollars, but boxing fans and observers who cover the sport continue to watch very carefully how serious he actually is with his boxing career? Now, after announcing plans of going into the management advisory role with PFL and eventually, potentially fighting MMA style fights for them instead of fighting more legitimate, well-known and worthwhile boxing matches, we all wonder how serious the boxing opponents would be in the short term?