Devils Advocate | Ben Askren VS Jake Paul?

Hey Buzz Fans, as most of you guys are aware, the rise in popularity of YouTube celebrity Jake Paul has reached new heights since he’s decided to enter the boxing ring. He fought fellow YouTuber AnEsonGib with a TKO in the first round. Then his most recent bout was against NBA basketball player Nate Robinson on the undercard of the Mike Tyson VS Roy Jones fight card on November 28th 2020. He won that fight also with a knockout in the second round, and in my opinion, a hilarious match. It reminded me of the celebrity boxing of the 90’s, the 76ers almost eight foot tall center Manute Bol fighting the Super Bowl Champion William “The Refrigerator” Perry, mixing it up in an utterly embarrassing fight in which I couldn’t tell you who won, but I can tell you who lost, the fans that watched.

To me, both of the Paul Brothers’ matches remind me of about one step above the horrific pro wrestling of today that is put on television currently. Fighting other YouTubers, or other sports stars, to me is just uninteresting and lackluster at best. After Jake’s victory, of course to get more attention, he went to the internet that made them famous and called out bigger names to hopefully get bigger paydays that come with those names. The likes of Connor McGregor, who everybody knew wouldn’t lower himself to such silliness. So for the life of me, I can’t understand why one of my all time favorite MMA fighters, Ben Askren would accept a fight with Jake Paul? Maybe someone the level of Dillon Danis, a guy who honestly has two professional fights against complete tomato cans, who is constantly taking the same strategy of a Jake Paul, by calling out bigger names and tagging his name beside theirs, maybe he would have accepted the fight with Jake, especially after that incredibly violent water balloon fight the two had (which looked staged as well). But why Ben? Why would you lower yourself and risk all the credibility you’ve accrued in your career to fight a guy that potentially could possibly beat you?

I never said Logan didn’t have talent, you could tell from the last fight he’s put in the work, even though Robinson isn’t a professional fighter, and Logan doesn’t have much to brag about. But he is substantially thicker and bigger than Askren, and here’s the key part of my problem if this fight does happen, Askren has TERRIBLE striking! It’s not like this is a MMA fight, this is STRICTLY boxing. Maybe if it were MMA I “might” understand Ben’s reasoning for accepting the invitation. But it’s a BOXING match, something that everyone knows has always been Askren’s weak spot, his Achilles heel. Ben has had plenty of money since fighting in ONE FC, not to mention he was a huge draw for the UFC. He’s also got three podcasts going and one of them is him talking about how much money he has made in BITCOIN. In recent interviews with people like Ariel Helwani, Askren has stated he wants to compete in wrestling matches or possibly an actual MMA fight if the money and the match was right, to get back into shape. But this makes no sense to me, honestly I was hoping that Michael Bisping was being serious about fighting Paul, as the size is closer and even with one eye and a bad knee, Bisping’s striking would still get Paul outta there within a round if Bisping takes it seriously.

Part of me wants to think that Askren’s striking might be decent, maybe his opponents were just that much better strikers in his division. Maybe Askren still being a two time MMA champion might still have better striking than a YouTube celebrity, but the flip side to that coin is, what if he doesn’t? What if Ben loses? That doesn’t just kill any legitimacy Askren has, it also makes the sport of MMA look weak at best. So in my final estimation, I say this could possibly be an even match at best, and it saddens me that Askren would be the one to lower himself to take part of such an embarrassing event

Leave a Reply