Despite intense hype during the lead-up, Floyd Mayweather and Logan Paul’s much discussed exhibition boxing match wound up being a pretty boring affair. There were a handful of nice punches landed, but mostly, there was a lot of clutching, grabbing and staring at each other. As such, most people forgot about it and moved on with their lives almost immediately, including apparently Floyd Mayweather himself who was recently confused about which Paul brother he actually fought.
Speaking to Hoops Plug, Floyd Mayweather reflected on the fight and how little he actually prepared for it. Apparently he dropped into the gym on occasion to do some sit-ups and hit the heavy bag but mostly just went about his life as if nothing was happening. In the same interview, he also confused Logan Paul with his brother Jake and mocked his opponent for trying to wrestle the entire time instead of throwing punches. You can read a portion of his quote below...
It’s not even on my record. You know, a lot of people be talking about ‘Oh, that Jake Paul.’ Listen, it wasn’t a real fight. All I was doing was just every once in a while going to the gym, sit-ups, hit the heavy bag, then go home… I take my hat off to him because, his background in wrestling was unbelievable because the whole night, all he did was wrestle me. They said he was a top level wrestler. I said ‘I can tell.’
For those of you who don’t care about YouTube culture and/ or aren’t following the Paul Brothers' exhibition boxing matches, there are some definite differences between Jake Paul and Logan Paul. First, Jake seems to pride himself much more on being an antagonist. The social media star turned fighter has a much more combative personality. He talks an absolute avalanche of mean-spirited trash and has been on the wrong side of politicians and police a few times. He also seems like, far and away, the better fighter of the two Paul Brothers. He's had quite a bit of success inside the ring, though that success doesn't make comparing himself to Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali any less ludicrous.
Logan Paul, conversely, seems to be a much more easy-going person than his brother, though he’s had his own scandals. He publicly criticized Jake for talking smack about Conor McGregor’s wife and has been far less braggy about his own boxing exhibition matches, though that may be partly because he hasn’t been as successful, at least inside the ring. Outside the ring, he has an extremely popular podcast and has more than twenty million subscribers on YouTube.
It remains to be seen how long the trend of exhibition fights is going to last. They have proven to be quite lucrative so far, at least for the Paul Brothers, but not everyone has fared quite so well. Jake Paul is currently scheduled to fight Tommy Fury in an upcoming boxing match, though it feels like this one has had a bit less hype than many of his previous fights. We’ll have to see what the pay per view numbers end up being.
As for Floyd Mayweather, it’s unclear if he’ll fight again. The undefeated legend called exhibition matches a great way to pick up “backpack money” during the same interview, but having made many hundreds of millions of dollars during his career, he probably doesn’t need any more backpack money if he doesn't feel like fighting again. We shall see.
