Jake Paul thanks ‘control freak’ Dana White, promises to stop ‘virgin’ Tommy Fury inside 8 rounds

Jake Paul has been criticized the entirety of his short professional boxing career for a lack of experience. Now, he’s using that knock on his next opponent.

“Upset” that Tommy Fury wasn’t able to attend a press conference Saturday for their boxing match on Dec. 18, Paul held court with boxing reporters – and his ever-present robot – to paint himself as a savior of boxing in a sport where big stars often dodge fights.

“Promoters not wanting to risk their big fighters losing, because that’s their paychecks, that’s how they make their revenue, so it’s too big of a risk for them,” Paul said at the press conference hosted by Showtime, which airs the winter pay-per-view. “We’re a big team, but a nimble team. We move fast, we make decisions, and I’m not scared of anybody. People are saying ‘Fight this person, fight that person’ – I’m doing these fights literally as fast we can get the deals done.

“I think a lot of these pro boxers, from what I’m finding out, they don’t work actually that hard, and they’re not really down to fight all the time whenever the call comes in. ... Really the only person that’s as active at this platform is Canelo [Alvarez].”

For a moment, Paul’s main offensive against Fury, the younger half-brother of heavyweight boxing champ Tyson Fury, didn’t want a real fight after leveraging his reality-show stardom into a boxing career. Fury fought on the undercard of Paul’s previous pay-per-view headliner against Tyron Woodley and, according to the YouTube star, hedged on signing a contract before putting pen to paper.

With the ink still drying on the deal, Paul said he would show his opponent what real experience meant.

“Tommy claims to have been doing this his whole life, and he has the amateur career, and he’s been around it, that is true,” Paul said. “But he hasn’t worked as hard as me. I see a green guy who hasn’t sparred enough times and has only been put in there with opponents that were meant to lose. This is his first real test where his opponent isn’t some guy that’s going to flop over. You’re going to see that. You’re going to see a fighter who is a virgin, in my opinion. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into. This is his first time under the big lights on the big stage, and he’s going to crack under pressure.”

To Paul’s credit, he has yet to do the same amid a series of escalating challenges, though his most famous critics, like UFC President Dana White, say that the star hasn’t proven anything by beating ex-MMA champs Woodley and Ben Askren. Paul has offered to box the UFC’s best and used the impossibility of that request as an opportunity to rip the UFC’s business practices.

With every jab from White, Paul said the UFC exec has only helped him.

“Dana, thank you again for promoting my fights,” he said. “You literally tee up every single fight for me perfectly. You place bets against me, I prove you wrong. You try to bring coaches for my opponents so they can beat me. You’re letting Tommy Fury train at the UFC Performance Institute.

“Give it up, guy. Give it up. ‘Fight a real boxer. When’s he going to fight a guy his own age.’ Whatever Dana White is constantly f*cking saying, I’m doing it, and he’s mad that I’m doing it because he’s a control freak, and when he doesn’t have his fingers dipped into someone’s business, he doesn’t want to see them succeed, and he tries to bring them down. But he’s not smart enough to realize that every single time he talks about me, it just makes my sh*t grow up.”

As someone who purports to put his money where his mouth is, Paul has issued another bet to Fury, wagering, he said, $500,000 on a win. If Fury loses, Paul adds, he must change his last name to “Fumbles.”

“Tommy hasn’t gone past four rounds – he hasn’t even had a fight past four rounds – so I think he’ll be gassed,” Paul said. “This will be the first time with him getting punched in the face by someone who can hit, who is the same weight as him. He’s always fought smaller guys with losing records, so I think he’s going to fade. I know he’s going to fade, it’s just what round – 5th, 6th, maybe 7th. Maybe I knock him out in the last 10 seconds of the 8th. But he’s not hearing that 8th bell ring.”

You can check out the full press conference below.