KSI thinks Jake Paul is getting worse.
On Saturday, Paul faced Nate Diaz in a 10-round boxing match in Dallas, winning a clear cut unanimous decision victory and even dropping the former UFC star in the fifth round. The fight was a good rebound for Paul, who suffered his first career defeat earlier this year when he lost a split decision to Tommy Fury in February.
But while many were impressed with Paul’s ability to bounce back and go 10 rounds with an opponent fabled for his cardio, KSI was not one of them.
“I feel like he’s regressed, if anything,” KSI said Monday on The MMA Hour. “I don’t think he did very well against an opponent who hardly jabbed. Watching the fight, I was like, ‘Nate isn’t jabbing at all. He’s not setting anything up.’ Jake wasn’t setting anything up. He was just surviving the 10 rounds. Low output, low I.Q. I don’t really understand what Jake was trying to do. I think he tried going ham in the first round, realized he didn’t want to gas out because he had nine more rounds, and then just decided to go at this really slow pace and just survive the 10 rounds while jabbing and moving. That was kind of it.
“I don’t feel like Nate posed a threat. He has pillow hands, especially in the boxing ring. When it comes to MMA, he might be able to knock down someone because of how small the gloves are, but in boxing he doesn’t throw anything from the hip. It’s like he’s slapping. And the amount of shots Jake took was tremendous but it hardly did anything, so that’s why I felt Jake was able to weather the storm and won unanimously, but obviously Nate didn’t jab.”
“I think he regressed,” KSI continued of Paul. “I just felt like the shot selection was poor. I felt like he did well to punch a punching bag, I guess. All Nate was trying to do was the old classic tactic of double guarding, trying to tire his opponent out, taking all the damage, trying to parry stuff, just literally walking down, but Nate doesn’t have any power to be able to do anything with that, and Jake didn’t capitalize. There were hardly any left foot turns, Jake didn’t do enough to the body, he was holding a lot. I just thought it was quite poor, personally.”
KSI and Paul have a contentious relationship with one another. While KSI is business partners with Jake Paul’s brother Logan, he and Jake have separated themselves as the two biggest stars in influencer boxing, and thus consistently deride each other through the media. All of the back-and-forth ostensibly is building towards a fight between the two that figures to be the biggest influencer boxing match in history, should it ever happen. The two were even in brief discussions earlier this year to finally face off, but those talks fell through, and now coming off the Nate Diaz fight, KSI believes Paul is running scared.
“I’ve been trying,” KSI said. “We’ve been trying to make the fight happen. After me vs. [Joe] Fournier, it was meant to be me vs. Jake, but then Jake decided he didn’t want to go down that route and decided to fight Nate instead. We have been trying to fight. Jake doesn’t want to do it. Jake doesn’t feel like he’s good enough to beat me. I think he felt like he was good enough to be me last year when I came back from music to get into boxing. He tried to capitalize on me when I wasn’t sharp, when I wasn’t as good as I am now. Now that he’s seen how I’ve taken out my opponents, my movement, my tenacity, blah, blah, blah, he’s seen all of that and it terrifies him. That’s what I believe.”
“After that loss against Tommy, he lost himself,” KSI continued. “That’s why he fired a lot of his team, got a new coach and everything, and just wanted to figure himself out. That’s why, the fight against Nate, I felt like he did worse than he did against Tommy. At least with Tommy he still looked like he was doing well certain parts of the rounds, he was able to push back Tommy. Tommy Fury was just beating him with the combinations and Jake doesn’t know how to attack when someone else is attacking. But there were parts of him that looked good against Tommy. Against Nate, if I was going to fight Jake before, I 100 percent want to fight him now, because I just know I would clear him, destroy him. It wouldn’t even be hard.”
And KSI says it’s only going to get worse. The British YouTuber is set to face Fury on October 14, in a match KSI specifically says he took to show the world he’s better than Paul. Once he does what Paul couldn’t do and beats Fury, KSI believes Paul will have even more excuses for why they can’t fight.
“Get Jake on here and put it on him,” KSI said. “Watch him go, ‘Nah, man. I’m trying to be a world champion. But first I need to fight Nate Diaz in the PFL for this MMA thing, and then after that I might have to rematch Tommy Fury, and after that, I know the KSI fight is there, but I want to fight [Jorge] Masvidal. I want to fight another retired MMA fighter just to build my confidence before I look at maybe even sniffing at KSI.’
“Excuse after excuse after excuse. He’ll call out Joe Rogan! [Laughs.] ‘Joe! It’s time! I want to fight you in a boxing match!’”