JAKE PAUL has been offered a home in Bellator – but only if he’s serious about competing in mixed martial arts.
The YouTuber recently claimed he’d retire from boxing and sign a one-fight deal to face Jorge Masvidal in the UFC if president Dana White met his demands.
That came after the 24-year-old star – who viciously KO’d former UFC welterweight champ Tyron Woodley in his last outing – said he’d start training at renowned MMA gym American Kickboxing Academy.
And Bellator president Scott Coker is willing to give The Problem Child an opportunity to try his hand at MMA.
He told MMA Junkie: “If you want to come into MMA, we would gladly do it.
“Think about this: He’s not saying, ‘I’m going to go train here. I’m going to go train there.’
“He’s going to come to one of the best gyms in the planet, where Khabib is, where Daniel Cormier is still training, where Cain Velasquez is teaching there now, and he’s going to go into an environment that he is going to flourish, and he has a wrestling background already.
“He has great striking, obviously. You’ve seen it, and so this guy is just going to get better and better and better.”
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Paul has yet to fight a fully-fledged boxer in his brief stint in the sport and Coker believes the social media sensation is due a step up in competition.
He continued: “The days of him fighting basketball players or whatever, those days are over.
“He wants to do it. The only thing I will say is, my understanding is he wants to get 10 fights into boxing, and then after that come over to mixed martial arts.
“I know certain people feel a certain way, but I tell you, don’t underestimate these guys because when they have their minds made up, it just seems like that they’re able to fulfill their destiny, and so to me, it’s something that if they want to make it happen, we would love to do something with them and put them in some big fights and really test them out.”
Paul – along with older brother Logan – has made waves in the boxing world in his five professional bouts.
And although the brothers came into martial arts very late, Coker is refusing to put a ceiling on how far they can go.
The veteran promoter said: “I always said, ‘Look, these guys are real athletes, and they’re young, they work hard, they’re grinding it out.
“They’re putting in the work. You can’t take that away from them, and they’re getting better and better and better.
“What you saw with Woodley, that’s a lot of hard work to get to that point. I’ve never seen Woodley get knocked out like that, right? And so, is it just boxing?
“Yes. So, I always said, ‘Look, man, don’t underestimate these guys,’ and this was like a year-and-a-half ago.”
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Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
