In what will someday rightly be known as boxing’s Jake Paul Era, it’s not how you fight that matters, it’s who you fight.
Paul, a Disney kid turned punchfluencer, was at it again last night, beating another opponent whose name recognition outweighed his current level of abilities. The latest tomato can of the month was Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a guy who despite holding the world middleweight title back in 2012 has always only gotten noticed for what comes before “Jr.”; his father, Julio Sr., who had a career 107-6-2 ring record and held belts in three weight classes, is perhaps the most popular Mexican athlete of all time.
The actual fight, like all of Paul’s fights, was ass. Paul seemed willing to trade, but it takes two to tango, and Chavez, a decade past any ring relevance, didn’t want to dance. Chavez did next to nothing for the first eight rounds of the 10-round bout. Analytics have avoided boxing pretty much thus far, but it doesn’t take a stats nerd to figure out that Chavez’s Compubox numbers were those of a supreme slacker. He landed no punches in the first round. Zero! And through four rounds he’d only landed nine punches. Nine!
Fans inside the Honda Center in Los Angeles who’d been cheering Jr. as an homage to his dad turned on him early; for the first seven rounds, the only crowd noise was boos. The few consequential shots Chavez landed before the fight’s waning rounds were low blows. Paul either was content to just win rounds or lacked the ring experience to corner his un-engaging opponent. In the end, Chavez Jr. landed just 61 punches, and 40 of those came in the final three rounds, during which he showed he could beat Paul if only he wanted to. When it was over, neither fighter looked like they’d been in a fight. Chavez lost by wide margins on the scorecards of all three judges; judge Steve Weisfeld gave him just one round. The saddest sight of the night came when cameras turned to Chavez Sr. sitting ringside with his head in his hands, in disbelief that his offspring would so sully their surname.
But any ticketbuyer or pay-per-viewer complaining about inertia in a Jake Paul bout comes off like Charlie Brown complaining about Lucy moving the ball. Fighting ain’t what happens at a Paul fight. Never has been.
And no matter how boring the fisticuffs, the night showed how Paul has changed the fight game. Fight commentators claimed that Paul-Chavez Jr. brought in the biggest live gate of any fight in the 32-year history of the Honda Center. Paul himself was involved in the promotion of the event, so who knows how true that claim is. But after the Paul-Mike Tyson extravaganza from last November, which for all its lousiness as a sporting event brought in an audience of over 100 million viewers, record gates seem quite possible.
That huge audience was the result of Paul putting his Tyson fight on Netflix, which at the time had a subscriber base of over 300 million. Using a streamer available to such a massive potential audience represented a sea change from recent boxing history, where even fights that casual fans have little interest in are put available only on pay-per-view. That night has had an impact on the sport as forceful as the impact Mike Tyson’s uppercut had on Michael Spinks’s chin back in 1988. Take, for example, the preparation for Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence “Bud” Crawford, scheduled for Sept. 13 in Las Vegas. This clash, for the undisputed super-middleweight world title, is the biggest fight by far on the boxing calendar for the rest of 2025. And, given the stakes and the fact that the combatants might well be the only two boxers that anybody under 30 can name (other than Jake Paul), the bout has the potential to set all sorts of pay-per-view records. But it’s not going to be a PPV; the fight will be streamed on Netflix. Just like Paul's momentous Tyson tilt.
The second-most anticipated fight among non-boxing obsessives is Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano, which will headline a card at Madison Square Garden on July 11. Paul’s fingerprints are all over this one, too. He has been a massive advocate for women’s boxing for years, as well as a personal promoter of Serrano. Both fighters’ renown increased severalfold as a result of the exposure they got by Paul putting their last matchup on the Tyson undercard. It helped that the fight was an instant-classic brawl, won by Taylor by decision. Their upcoming match is being called the biggest fight in women’s boxing history. During introductions prior to the Chavez fight, the ring announcer identified Paul as “a promoter who has transformed and elevated women’s boxing to new heights!” That fight will also be streamed to a potentially record-breaking audience on Netflix.
Power players in the sport are taking notice. Last night’s Chavez fight was co-produced by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions, the biggest of the legitimate fight promoters in the U.S. In an interview during the broadcast, De La Hoya referenced the mainstream excitement building around the Canelo-Crawford and Taylor-Serrano fights, and talked glowingly about Paul’s influence.
“He’s getting kids into boxing,” De La Hoya said. “Thank you, Jake Paul!”
And before the opening bell came reports that should Paul win, the presidents of both the WBC and WBA, the same sanctioning bodies that rank Canelo and Crawford and Taylor and Serrano and all legit fighters, would insert him into their cruiserweight rankings and thereby be eligible for a world title fight.
Alas, you can take the clown out of the circus, but you can’t take the circus out of the clown.
In his post-fight interview, Paul congratulated himself for delivering what he called a “flawless” performance, and told the booing crowd to shut up when they booed. “I just beat your boy’s ass!” he said, as a pro wrestler might.
When asked who he’d like to fight next, Paul didn’t mention a single cruiserweight titleholder or contender. Paul, like the rest of the world, probably couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup. So he instead called out Anthony Joshua and Gervonta Davis. Joshua is a washed-up former world heavyweight title holder who weighed 252 lbs. while getting KO’d in his last bout. While his skills are long gone, Joshua still has a big name and looks. Davis, meanwhile, is a generational lightweight and current titleholder, one of the greatest pound for pound fighters around. But for his last fight in March, Davis weighed a mere 135 lbs.
Paul weighed in at 198.5 lbs. for the Chavez fight. So, if either the Joshua or Davis vs. Paul fight ever came off, Paul would be giving or taking 60 lbs., thereby guaranteeing yet another circus. I’d watch.
