Jake Paul is pretty confident in his chances against Nate Diaz if the two were to rematch under MMA rules.
The 27 year-old barely scraped by former UFC star Diaz in what was a closely-contested boxing match last August, with Paul taking home the unanimous decision victory. Diaz had his moments in the fight though, most notably locking up an illegal guillotine choke on the Paul brother with the referee having to pull him off.
Following their fight in Dallas, the PFL-signed Paul would make Diaz a lucrative offer to fight him in MMA, but to no avail as the UFC veteran wants nothing to do with him nor the PFL apparently, instead taking a boxing rematch with BMF rival Jorge Masvidal on July 6th.
O’Malley On Paul vs. Diaz 2 In MMA
Paul has shifted his focus onto other opponents for now in Mike Perry and Mike Tyson later this year, leaving the door open for a potential MMA fight with Diaz down the line. While it will likely never happen, current UFC Bantamweight Champion Sean O’Malley would give a gander on how the crossover fight would go.
“It’s a winnable fight for you, I really do think that,” O’Malley told the boxer on BS w/ Jake Paul. “But, Nate is so f****** [good], you would have to do what I did against Aljo [Aljamain Sterling] and Merab [Dvalishvili], not let that motherf***** grab you. Not that you can’t wrestle because I know you can wrestle, but once he starts grabbing you and doing jiu-jitsu, if he gets on top, he likes his little trips, it would be hard for you to win.”
“Suga” Tells Paul To ‘Protect Ya Neck’
O’Malley continued, noting Diaz’s massive edge in the grappling department.
“Nate’s not like a super strong guy. So if you learn how to like, I’m sure you know how to get up to a single leg, stuff like that, but you start getting your neck grabbed, I don’t know how much jiu-jitsu you know. I mean, Nate’s a f****** high level black belt. If you could keep it standing a hundred percent. There’s winnable ways there. If he went to the ground, I feel like he might be able to grab your neck.”
Paul: “If I Don’t Get Guillotined…”
Diaz, a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, has well over 30 MMA bouts and has been professionally fighting since 2004 as opposed to Paul having zero experience in MMA and 10 fights in boxing. Paul does have some experience, having wrestled in high school but other than that and a few tricks learned here and there, that’s about it for him.
Despite the very obvious gap in experience and skills, “El Gallo de Dorado” believes he’d be able to hang with Diaz when it comes to the ground game – though he’d have to be weary of Diaz’s world-famous guillotine choke.
“That’s exactly how I feel about it,” Paul said of O’Malley’s analysis. “If I don’t get guillotined, then I win the fight. But even if he was on top of me, I would just throw him off of me.”
Paul On ‘The Weakest Puncher I’ve Ever Fought’
That’s way easier than done but moving on, Paul would belittle his former opponent, citing Diaz has the most lousy punching power he’s ever felt in a fight.
“He’s also the weakest puncher I’ve ever fought,” Paul said of Diaz. “When he was hitting me, I almost like started laughing. I’m not even saying this to talk s***. Out of everyone I’ve sparred in my whole entire life and everyone I’ve fought his punches are [the weakest].
“I think it’s funny that he dropped Conor [McGregor] and s***…. he is the weakest puncher I’ve ever fought in my life.”
Footnote: Nate Diaz did not knock down Conor McGregor (as Jake Paul so claims) in either one of his fights with the Irish UFC superstar, however he did manage to stun McGregor on the feet on a few occasions.
