Jake Paul is not pleased with the initial pay-per-view projections from his fight with Anderson Silva.
Last weekend, Paul took on Silva, who is the longest reigning champion in UFC history, and beat him by unanimous decision for a career best win.
The event was broadcast on Showtime pay-per-view, but Paul has described the initial projections in terms of buys as ‘upsetting’.
With that being said, the social media star believes it comes down to a number of reasons, from the fight almost being pulled due to Silva getting knocked out in sparring, which he later clarified did not happen.
This was compounded by the fact that Paul previously had two opponents pull out in Tommy Fury and Hasim Rahman Jr, which could have made the fans think that the fight was not going ahead yet again.
Paul also speculated there is an abundance of sport taking place in America at the moment, which could have distracted from his fight.
“I think it will probably go around 200,000 – 300,000 which is kind of upsetting,” Paul said on his brother Logan’s Impaulsive podcast.
“The pre-buys were going crazy. On Wednesday, when the news came out about Anderson saying he got knocked out [in sparring] or whatever, the fight was in jeopardy and all this press came out, the pre-buys tanked.
“The general public sees that and thinks it’s not happening. Tommy [Fury] pulled out, Hasim [Rahman Jr] pulled out,’ Jake Paul can’t get an event together, this is done’.
“It killed ticket sales, we were still selling tickets but that day everything went to zero. It was so annoying.
“Halloween, World Series and Sunday football. This is the worst time of the year to fight but guess what, I had to fight.
“All of my fights from now on will be in the summer, there’s no sports. There’s like this perfect gap in July and early August when there is no sports.
“All my other fights were during Covid when no one had anything to do and anything to watch. NBA, NFL, nothing was on.
“I had to fight this year, I just had to get it f****** done. I was tired of waiting around.”
OFFER OF THE DAY
Bet365: Bet £10 Get £50 In Free Bets* – CLAIM HERE
Open account offer. Bet £10 & Get £50 in Free Bets for new customers at bet365. Min deposit requirement. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits and are available for use upon settlement of qualifying bets. Min odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Time limits and T&Cs apply 18+ Begambleaware.org
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘752905198150451’);
fbq(‘track’, “PageView”);
News Summary:
- Jake Paul says his fight with Anderson Silva did between 200-300,000 pay-per-view buys, which he described as ‘upsetting’
- Check all news and articles from the latest Boxing updates.