Mike Tyson remains a big fan of Dana White, while YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul recently addressed the beef he has with the UFC boss.
Over the years, both White and Paul have traded barbs on social media on multiple occasions. Since making his professionalboxingdebut in 2020, ‘The Problem Child’ has fought a number of UFC icons and has criticised the promotion over its fighter pay. Last year, he said he wanted to see the minimum pay for UFC fighters rise from $12,500 to $50,000.
Earlier this summer, the young American declared that he was barred from the promotion’s fights ahead of sneaking into their landmark card at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Paul, asserted he was banned from all events back in 2022 before posting a video of himself wearing a fake beard, wig, flannel shirt, and sunglasses in an attempt to ‘sneak into the Sphere’.
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It led to the UFC boss publicly revealing that the social media star is able to attend any live UFC event. However, Paul claimed earlier this month that he received an email from White which states that he’s unable to sit cageside for any of the UFC’s fight cards.
In a recent episode of his podcast, Paul addressed the problem he has with White and doubled down on the issue regarding fighter pay in the UFC. “The only thing I’ve ever really asked for is for the minimum fighter pay, which is $12,500, to be changed to $50,000”, he said. “If fighters, who have to work multiples jobs, if they once a year even, they would still be able to live off of that, and if it was twice a year, they would make $100,000 – which is great.
“But now, if they’re fighting once a year, it’s $12,500 or twice a year which would be $25,000, so that’s been my only ask to Dana to change and that would only cost the UFC $20million annually. It seems ‘oh, you made three or four billion dollars’, why not give a little bit more to the fighters? Make that change and I’ll shut the f*** up.
Mike Tyson and Jake Paul will fight in Dallas, Texas, next week (
AFP via Getty Images)
“When I started talking about this, that was when Dana was like ‘oh, Jake Paul does steroid, Jake Paul’s fights are rigged’. So he’s the one that started all of the personal rumours, he’s been the biggest voice of oppression to me because I’m the only one in the entire fight business who can talk back to him”.
To the contrary, Paul’s upcoming opponent – Tyson – has a strong relationship with the UFC chief and is full of praise for the American. Speaking on the Come And Talk 2 Me podcast, ‘Iron Mike’ said: “Listen, that’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to boxing. Because, if you’re in the UFC and if anyone is booing a fight, you’re not going to see that guy again”. The 58-year-old’s comments came after White recently decided that the time is right to try his luck in the sport of boxing.
“His next fight is going to be in South Dakota somewhere”, Tyson continued. “They only do good fights. If you don’t have a good fight, you’re never going to see that guy again. Not like boxing, ‘well this guy is fighting again next month, no one wants to see that again'”.
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