Ahead of his next boxing match, Jake Paul has been exchanging harsh words outside the ring.
During a press conference on Thursday ahead of his bout with former UFC fighter Mike Perry, Paul criticized star fighter Conor McGregor.
“Conor McGregor can say what he wants, but he’s not going to fight me,” Paul joked. “If I knock out Mike Perry, I’ll fight Conor McGregor. But you won’t, because you know what’s going to happen. … Conor McGregor, if you quit the cocaine, go to the gym and start winning fights, maybe we can have a conversation.”
At a Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship press conference early Thursday, McGregor touted Perry, who fought for several years in the offshoot mixed martial arts league, while also insulting Paul.
“Now he [Perry] McGregor will be taking on a bit of a nerd in his fight this weekend.” Speaking from Spain.
Paul, 26, has recently come up through the ranks in the boxing world and continues to turn heads and draw large crowds with a record of 9 wins, 1 loss and 0 draws.
Paul has won his last three fights, including a bout against UFC legend Nate Diaz last August.
But the 6ft 1in boxer has received backlash because he has rarely fought real boxers.
Paul was scheduled to fight Mike Tyson on Saturday, but the bout was postponed to Nov. 15 because of Tyson’s health concerns. But even then, some had doubts about Paul taking on a 58-year-old fighter.
Paul offered to switch to mixed martial arts against McGregor and other well-rounded strikers, but no formal progress was made, leading the youngster to denounce all participants on the other side of mixed martial arts.
“Every single time, they sit across from me and say, ‘I’m going to beat you,'” Paul said. “What MMA fighters say means absolutely nothing. They’re all shit and they can’t box at all. If I try to fight you in MMA, you don’t do it.”
McGregor was scheduled to make his long-awaited UFC return on June 29 but had to withdraw due to a broken pinky finger.
On Thursday, he sounded open to the idea of fighting Michael Chandler on Dec. 14.
The Irishman knows a thing or two about boxing, having defeated unbeaten Floyd Mayweather by TKO in 2017 in a bout that tied the highest grossing pay-per-view fight of all time.
For now, with Paul focused on Saturday’s bout with Perry and McGregor set to step into the Octagon for the first time in more than three years, their feud seems far from resolved.
