Former UFC star Chael Sonnen claims Jake Paul could “really use” a fight against Nate Diaz because his boxing career is seemingly “on hold,” since his last pay-per-view fight “didn’t meet expectations.”
Jake Paul’s last fight against Tyron Woodley ended with an emphatic knockout. However, it was reportedly a commercial failure, although Jake urged people to take the reported numbers with a grain of salt.
The Problem Child has taken some time off since then. Now, Chael Sonnen believes his hand was forced by Showtime, who wanted to put his career “on hold” due to his previous fight not meeting expectations.
Jake Paul’s next fight hasn’t been locked in yet.
“Jake told us that his last fight didn’t meet expectations,” said Chael. “That’s fine. You’ve got to be used to that. One day you will have a sold-out 5000 people, but then take the same recipe to a different date and there will be 500 people.
“So, what went into the fact that Jake Paul didn’t have a wonderful last fight – his second fight with Tyron Woodley? Nobody has the answer to that question. But I can tell you what did happen. They didn’t use him again.”
Chael claims Jake was “smart enough” to address it first, however. “He came forward before Showtime made a statement saying they were putting the Jake Paul experiment on hold. He got in front of it and said he was putting his boxing career on hold.”
“Was that the reality? Did he not want to fight? Or did he know that a fight wasn’t coming? I can only tell you that as I surmise with the evidence in front of me, Jake Paul could really use a fight against Nate Diaz right now.”
Chael admitted that having one “bad night” in terms of pay-per-view numbers wasn’t enough for Jake to go into “absolute panic.” But he does think it’s a “problem” that can be solved by fighting Nate Diaz.
Diaz recently requested to leave the UFC and brushed off a fight against Jake in favor of fighting his brother, Logan.
So, Jake might need to seek out a different opponent like Colby Covington, who is seemingly open to it.