After suffering a knockout loss to former two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua leaving his jaw broken in multiple places, Jake Paul called out former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
“I told everyone that I would do better than Francis. Francis has kind of got no chin. Francis is low key soft,” Paul recently said on the IMPAULSIVE Podcast with Logan Paul. “I’ll fight Francis. That’s a good idea, actually. I think maybe now he’ll take it.”
Paul’s decision to target Ngannou left former two-division UFC titleholder Daniel Cormier scratching his head.
“Jake Paul just got his head bashed in by Anthony Joshua. Right? That was about as big a learning lesson that anyone could have been taught,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel.
“Here’s the problem. Jake Paul has proven to be, he’s proven to be one, hard-headed, two, more bold and brave than anyone could have ever imagined.”
Cormier considers Paul ‘bold and brave’ for agreeing to fight Joshua without stipulations. That ‘bold and brave’ mentality also put Paul in over his head, and Cormier thinks it might again.
“It would seem like his bold and brave attitude really cost him. And with that bold and brave attitude a lot of the times comes cowardice after. Not Jake Paul. Not Jake Paul. You can love him, you can hate him, but he’s brave,” Cormier said.
“I would have thought, I swear to God, I would have thought that after what happened with Anthony Joshua, Jake Paul would say, ‘Okay, let me rematch Anderson [Silva] or somebody … You would have thought Jake Paul would go, ‘You know what? I’m going to rematch Anderson. Maybe I’ll find another mixed marital artists guy that’s a little bit over the hill to try to fight where it’s more safe and it’s a more controlled environment because the problem with the Anthony Joshua fight is it wasn’t controlled. It was just a fight. That’s not Jake Paul. He immediately goes back after Francis Ngannou. It’s crazy to me.”
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Paul was undersized against Joshua and would be similarly undersized against Ngannou. Cormier believes Paul is out to prove Joshua didn’t ‘knock the scared into him.’
“For as small as Jake looked against Anthony, he’ll look equally as small against Francis Ngannou. But I think what’s happening with Jake is he’s wanting other show that Anthony Joshua didn’t knock scared into him, which in reality he probably should have knocked a little scared into him,” Cormier said.
Cormier believes the call out of Ngannou by Paul was a mistake and that the influencer-turned-boxer should reconsider.
“I just don’t think he (Paul) can hurt him. I just don’t know that he can hurt Francis like he thinks he can hurt Francis,” Cormier said. “You can never question the boldness of Jake Paul. You could never question the toughness of Jake Paul. I question his smarts.”
“I think he needs to reconsider,” continued Cormier.
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