Jake Paul was suspiciously silent on the topic of Dana White’s latest scandal – which raised quite a few eyebrows. Paul has been long branded as UFC’s public enemy number 1 due to the amount of attention he was able to direct to certain UFC sore spots such as the pay model.
Paul is undoubtedly the best boxer to have come out of the pop-boxing movement and he’s proven it having won against MMA veterans including Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva.
Despite Silva’s age, many believe Paul’s win over him is definitive proof that he has what it takes to succeed in combat sports.
New York Times broke a huge bit of news minutes ago when it was revealed Paul has inked a lucrative deal with the PFL and plans to make his MMA debut in 2023.
Paul will compete in a new division known as Super Fight, with events on pay-per-view.
Paul and his business partner (former UFC CFO) Nakisa Bidarian now own an equity share of the PFL.
Details of Paul’s deal were not disclosed. Paul’s official role is the “head of fighter advocacy” indicating that a big part of his new role will be sharing about PFL to the millions of his followers.
PFL lost majorly when Kayla Harrison headlined their first PPV event – with Cris Cyborg alleging that the card had less than 20,000 PPV buys.
The new division is meant to attract people who are an instant PPV draw whereas classical divisions target championships.
In the Super division, athletes will earn at least 50 percent of the pay-per-view revenue with bouts distributed by ESPN and the streaming service DAZN.
“This is about changing MMA., disrupting, innovating, and creating the next big league,” Paul said in an interview.
Baseball great, Alex Rodriguez invested PFL at $500 million evaluation. He contributed $30 million to a funding round.
PFL is now valued at $500 million, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. That’s up from a reported $400 million in 2021.