Logan Paul is not done with his combat sports career just yet. In fact, he may be branching out.
Paul is a YouTube celebrity who first entered the world of boxing back in 2018 when he fought fellow YouTuber KSI to a majority draw in an amateur boxing match. Given the finish, the two rematched in a professional bout in 2019, with Paul losing by split decision. That failure did little to stunt his boxing career though, as Paul ended up securing an exhibition bout against Floyd Mayweather in 2021, where he managed to survive eight rounds against the all-time great. Now, riding high off that performance, Paul is looking to return to non-exhibition fighting and finally earn his first real win.
Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Paul said that he is looking to compete in boxing again this year, hopefully against Brazilian YouTuber Whindersson Nunes, who recently fought to a draw in an exhibition boxing match against Acelino Freitas, a 46-year old former WBO super featherweight champion.
“That’s who I would love to fight, to be honest with you,” Paul said. “Whindersson’s huge and we’ve been having a back-and-forth for a couple years now. I think, similarly to myself, he’s pivoted multiple careers and the kid obviously works hard and is disciplined, and I think it would be an amazing match with two massive entertainers. He’s got 60 million or so followers on Instagram. He rivals some of the biggest celebrities in the world, and in Brazil I don’t think it gets much bigger than him. So the same way when I first boxed KSI, it was an international bloodbath, U.K. vs. the U.S.A., it would be cool to do United States vs. Brazil.”
Logan Paul’s interest in boxing Nunes continues him down a path that diverges greatly from his brother Jake’s boxing career. Jake Paul began his boxing career as the co-main event for Logan’s first fight with KSI, but has since gone on to make waves in the sport by fighting other professional athletes and knocking out former MMA champions Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley. In fact, that success in the boxing realm has led Jake to openly talk about fight Canelo Alvarez some day, which is a far cry from what Logan Paul is interested in.
“I’m gonna leave that up to Jake,” Paul said. “He wants to be a real, live boxer — he wants to go 10-0. A) I don’t care. B) I’m already professionally 0-1, so I’ve ruined my chances. I’m 0-1-1. What a lame start, dude. Like, f*ck it. I’ll just go on an put on some big shows, and hopefully we’ll see what happens with this Whindersson situation. But the next person I fight will get knocked out. I have no doubt in my mind that me going from fighting the best fighter on the planet in Floyd Mayweather to any other person will end any other way than a knockout equivalent to that of my brother’s.”
As it stands, boxing Whindersson is not the sum of Logan Paul’s combat sports ambitions.
A standout wrestler in high school, Paul has said that his grappling skills exceed his boxing ability, and as more opportunities become available for him, the elder Paul brother says that a foray into MMA is inevitable — and could potentially happen sooner than expected.
“Probably. I get bored. I get f*cking bored,” Paul said. “I have so many interests and do so many things, it’s like, why not? Who the f*ck else is doing it? Or can? I think it’d be entertaining, I think it’d be great. A few [people have offered]. There was one in Japan actually, that I still might end up doing. That excites me.”
If Paul does wish to make the jump to MMA, he will surely have no shortage of suitors. Bellator CEO Scott Coker has already said he would welcome the opportunity to work with him.
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