As Jake Paul prepares for his pay-per-view return on Saturday against former middleweight champion — and son of the Mexican icon — Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., the YouTube sensation turned viral pugilist said he already knows what the morning-after reaction from the boxing world will be come Sunday.
“They are going to be making excuses as to why [the fight] happened and discrediting me and my opponent,” Paul told CBS Sports last week. “The typical and standard that they normally say: ‘It was fake,’ or ‘he took a dive’ or ‘he was on steroids.’ Of course, leading into it, they say this is a good fight and I’m going to lose but the next day there is always excuses.”
The problem for Paul, a 28-year-old native of Ohio who goes by the moniker of “Problem Child,” the criticism he has received from mainstream boxing, in this case, would actually be valid.
Despite being just five years into his pro career, Paul (11-1, 7 KOs) enters his 13th pro fight as a 7-to-1 betting favorite when he welcomes Chavez (54-6-1, 34 KOs) for a 10-round cruiserweight bout (DAZN PPV, 8 p.m. ET — buy now) inside the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
On paper, the selection of Chavez is the perfect antidote to the heaps of criticism Paul often takes for his matchmaking from those within traditional boxing who often say, “When will you take on a real boxer?” This after Paul has largely feasted for years on retired MMA stars and a variety of part-time boxers and influencers (not to mention, a near 60-year-old Mike Tyson in last fall’s blockbuster on Netflix).
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For those that truly know boxing, however, it’s clear that the 39-year-old Chavez is a difficult challenge in name only after the 23-year pro has spent much of the last 13 years missing weight, abusing drugs and routinely quitting on himself whenever fights against legitimate names became difficult.
Although Chavez once captured a world title, he did so as a 160-pound weight bully all the way back in 2011, one year before the final quality win of his career when he stopped a 28-1 Andy Lee, who would go on to claim a middleweight title of his own. The Chavez of today simply has more red flags than he has redeeming qualities as anything close to a legitimate boxer.
Chavez was reportedly hospitalized for mental health and substance abuse issues as recently as last year. He also legitimately lost an embarrassing eight-round split decision to 46-year-old MMA legend Anderson Silva in 2021, 16 months before Paul outpointed Silva in their boxing match.
After sitting idle for three years, Chavez returned to the ring in 2024 on the undercard of Paul’s TKO win over Mike Perry but visibly struggled to outwork 40-year-old retired UFC veteran Uriah Hall, who was boxing for just the second time as a pro, in a close decision win.
Had Paul faced off against Chavez in 2021 before the loss to Silva, it would have been seen as a very legitimate fight considering Chavez’s name, experience and the fact that Paul had only been a pro for less than two years. But four years later, the fight puts Paul in a very difficult position.
If he wins, that’s expected. But if he loses or a motivated and in-shape Chavez pushes him to the brink in a close fight, he will be ruthlessly maligned. And it’s because of that — not to mention the head-scratching decision of Paul and his Most Valuable Promotions to stage the fight on the same night as the UFC’s annual International Fight Week PPV — that boxing fans haven’t been all that interested in this matchup or the “Jake Paul boxing experience” in general of late.
Some of that is directly related to the fallout of the Tyson fight, which was presented as a fully sanctioned fight yet played out like a bad sparring match as Paul clearly carried a middle-aged fighter to the eight-round distance. But there’s also customer fatigue related to Paul’s fights, in general, from the lack of elite skill, excitement and the fact that Paul has typically held key (if not unfair) size, age and experience advantages in most of his fights.
The only time Paul did face what one would consider to be a “real boxer” before Chavez was when he suffered his lone pro defeat in a 2023 split-decision loss to Tommy Fury, the younger half-brother of former heavyweight Tyson Fury, who was largely seen as more of a reality television star than a purebred future boxing champion. (Paul also fought a pair of inactive journeymen cruiserweights in late 2023 but neither made it out of the first round or provided any meaningful opposition.)
That doesn’t mean that Paul can’t box or that he doesn’t take the sport seriously. He has routinely received respect, even from his detractors, for both. But being the best celebrity boxer in the world is a totally different thing than saying your goal is to end up capturing a world title, which Paul has routinely said he’s closing in on.
Admittedly, Paul has always been in a unique place as a boxer. He was headlining his own PPVs in his third pro fight and isn’t wrong when he routinely compares himself to other fighters who were competing off of TV at the same point in their careers without the pressures of both carrying an entire event or juggling the dual role of competing in big fights that you are also the lead promoter of.
It’s just that the public has grown tired of the charade of Paul calling out names like Canelo Alvarez and Anthony Joshua (neither of whom accepted his offer to presumably cash himself out) only for him to then fight an aging, inferior opponent in matchups that bring plenty of buzz and crossover virality but fail to live up to the professional expectations of combined skill and excitement.
For everything Paul says about how close he is to competing for a legitimate cruiserweight title, he will just as quickly throw out ideas for mismatched exhibition fights like the one he came close to signing earlier this year against 135-pound champion Gervonta “Tank” Davis (which Paul maintains is still a possibility to close 2025).
The decision, however, for Paul to co-promote this weekend’s card with Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy, which led to cruiserweight titleholder Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez being added to the co-main event in a title defense against former champion Yunier Dorticos, is a refreshing one for those who have pushed Paul to finally step up into a real fight. Paul has publicly said that a future fight between them is possible, which is the exact reason why Ramirez is on the card.
Either way, it’s hard to question the positive impact that Paul has had on the sport since his disruptive start. Not only has he been responsible for introducing a fresh and younger audience to boxing, he has already made an even bigger contribution as a promoter by cornering the market of late on the signing of elite female talent and ushering in a new era for boxing on the massive streaming platform of Netflix (where he will promote the July 11 trilogy between future Hall of Famers Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano).
“I’ve always said that I think I will make more impact outside of the ring as a promoter than inside of the ring, and just the things I’m doing with my partnership with USA boxing,” Paul said. “We have a bunch of exciting announcements coming there, building gyms throughout the world. And just the promotional side of signing fighters for the next generation, all the big-name female fighters. We are just getting warmed up.
“In the long run, I will probably be bigger [and better remembered in boxing] as a promoter.”
In the meantime, Paul will continue to walk out what remains of his fighting career. But forgive combat sports fans for not being all that moved over what his fight against Chavez will actually look like.
Ever since Paul arrived in boxing, he has talked a big game. But it’s just about past time for him to prove his doubters wrong by stepping up against someone his own age, size and ability level to find out how good he can truly be.
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