MICHAEL BISPING taunted Jake Paul for choosing to fight Nate Diaz in his boxing return.
The YouTuber-turned boxer is set to face ex-UFC star Diaz on August 5 in Texas over eight rounds at a catchweight of 185lb.
It will be his fourth opponent with an MMA background, following wins over Ben Askren, 38, Tyron Woodley, 40, and Anderson Silva, 48.
But when Paul, 26, fought the first recognised boxer in his career in Tommy Fury, 23, he was beaten by split-decision.
So UFC legend Bisping was left unsurprised when the American chose to snub a rematch with Fury to instead focus on Diaz.
He said on his YouTube channel: “Nate Diaz, this will be a fun fight.
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“Nate Diaz is no walk in the park – very, very tough, extremely hard to finish. Granted, he’s not a boxer. He’s almost 40 years old.
“He’s got a great submission game – you can’t use that. But the hands of Nate Diaz are good. You cannot deny that.
“I’m not hating on Jake Paul, but this is the pattern, this is the flow. It’s an almost 40 non-boxer.
“It’s a guy that’s a submission specialist with decent hands, and he’s much smaller.
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“Diaz is very tall – he’s not a small man by any stretch of the imagination.
“But he did fight the majority of his career as a lightweight, OK? So it is going to be very interesting to see how this goes down.”
Paul looked set to invoke his rematch clause with Fury, after the success of their Saudi Arabia grudge match which drew 800,000 pay-per-view buys.
But Bisping, 44, believes the social media sensation has played it safe by choosing to fight Diaz in his return.
He said: “You do learn more from your losses than what you do in your victories, but he’s not talking about that.
“He’s saying, ‘Listen, everyone just thinks I’m vulnerable.’
“Well, you were clearly showing that when you first went up against a professional boxer – not a basketballer, not a wrestler, not a past-his-prime MMA guy. (Fury) was a boxer.
“He was young, he was a novice boxer, and you got beat fair and square. So you are more vulnerable, but it’s not the best thing that’s happened to your career.
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“He stepped up against Tommy and he got his ass kicked. Let’s be honest. Maybe not kicked. He got beat fair and bloody square, though.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
