Most people in the combat sports world at large know there’s no love lost between crossover boxing star Jake Paul and UFC CEO Dana White.
Fewer likely know Paul and now-former UFC bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley are partners on an upstart men’s deodorant brand. It was in the vein of a chance to see his friend fight that Paul, in a video he posted to Instagram on Sunday, that Paul defied what he says is a ban on UFC event attendance by White – and wore a disguise to get into UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas, presumably as a ticketed customer.
There, Paul got to see O’Malley drop a lopsided unanimous decision to Merab Dvalishvili. But the win for Paul, apparently, was the video he put out showing him in close proximity to White, UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and others near the cage.
Paul made his name as a YouTube vlogger influencer type. He stumbled onto the right formulas and metrics and algorithms to break big, and then made a crossover into professional boxing. But he’s also used his growing influence in that world to draw attention to what he says are unfair pay practices by the UFC, and naturally has taken particular aim at White.
Guy is such a troll, I love it.
“Listen, that kid knows how to market and do his thing and all that good sh*t,” White insisted. “Jake Paul is welcome to come to UFC.”
If a “cokehead junkie” like De La Hoya can attend, Paul should have no problem.
The part-time pugilist, scheduled to box the barely-bipedal Mike Tyson later this year on Netflix, was at Sphere to support friend and business partner Sean O’Malley, who dropped his bantamweight crown to Merab Dvalishvili in the UFC 306 main event.