Jake Paul & Nate Diaz both weighed in successfully on Friday for their ten round 185-lb catchweight fight at cruiserweight on Saturday night from the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The event will be streamed live on DAZN beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET.
Weigh-in results:
Jake Paul – 185lbs
Nate Diaz – 184.9lbs
Security kept Jake & Nate apart during the face-off, making sure there were no repeats of last Thursday’s altercation between their team members at the final press conference.
In the co-feature, female world undisputed featherweight champion Amanda Serrano (44-2-1, 30 KOs) weighed in at 124 1/2 lbs for her ten round rematch against Heather Hardy (24-3, 4 KOs). Hardy weighed in at 125 3/4 lbs.
Serrano, 34, defeated Hardy by a ten round unanimous decision four years ago in 2019 in a competitive fight. Hence, we’re finally seeing a rematch.
Nate Diaz: “No matter how this fight goes, this mother f***ker can’t really fight,” said Nate moments after weighing in, taking a verbal swipe at Jake.
Jake Paul: “They’ve been saying Jake’s tough. They’ve been saying, ‘Nate’s tough. Nate’s a dog.’ Well, guess what? Tomorrow, I’m dog-walking that b**ch. I’m putting him back on a leash. I’m sending him back to the cage. I’m f***king him up.”
Jake (6-1, 4 KOs) will be fighting for the first time since his eight round split decision loss to Tommy Fury last February in Saudi Arabia. He came close to pulling out the victory when he dropped Fury in the eighth round.
“When you come from the UFC, you can’t be taking ‘The Problem Child’ too seriously,” said Shawn Porter to DAZN Boxing, discussing how Nate Diaz was recently seen at a shopping mall ahead of this fight this Saturday night against Jake Paul.
“A guy that is aggressive like Nate, who thrives on that, will that serve him well getting upset?” said Akin Reyes.
“Absolutely. You see that red in front of his eyes, and now we’ve got to be patient to wait on it, that’s something that a lot of fighters, we go to the ring hungry, and now you just make,” said Porter.
“Especially a guy that’s not going on technique. He’s going on aggressiveness,” said Akin about Nate.
“It’s funny you say that about Nate needing to see the red. We spoke to Ariel Helwani yesterday, and he said the reason Nate walked away from their face-off is because Jake was giving him too many plaudits,” said Ade Oladipo. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to hear plaudits. I want to hear mad. Don’t try to be nice to me.’
“So, he walked away because he isn’t here to play games, and he said that to us yesterday. He’s here to fight, and I think he’s going to fight on Saturday.”
“That’s the rebuttal to what I just said. I’m checking your temperature because you’re at the mall, but if you’re getting compliments, ‘I don’t want to hear that. Get out of my face. That’s not what I need to hear right now,'” said Porter about Diaz. “Who doesn’t want to get compliments?”
“You usually can’t do that in eight weeks,” Porter said about the physical condition Jake Paul is in. “They’ve been going at for months in Puerto Rico, on the beach, doing the whole nine. What you are seeing is the true representation of what [Paul’s strength & conditioning coach Larry] Wade has done and the work that Jake Paul has put in. Not just with Wade but also for himself as well.
“Even with the hands as well. We talk about Jake having only done this for five years. I watch him, and you can tell this is a guy that is now dedicated to the craft of boxing,” said Ade.
“His improvements from what I first saw him fight KSI’s younger brother to the guy that fought Tommy Fury to the guy that is hitting pads there, he’s making those jumps lot.”
“I know he changed his camp a little bit. Obviously, the addition of coach Wade. I thought he beat Tommy Fury, but even in that loss, I think he may have saw, ‘Hey, these are some of the things I need to tweak,'” said Porter about Jake Paul.
“For him again, after five years as a professional athlete, for him to know, ‘These are some of the things I need to add to what I have going on,’ he is supposed to get better after every fight,” said Porter.
“That was a hard fight to score [Jake Paul vs. Tommy Fury]. Everyone is getting points taken. He was getting points added. I didn’t know what was going on.”
“What about the criticism he [Jake] has received after fighting a professional boxer, going back to an MMA fighter, where even though Nate has a reputation for having good hands,” said Akin.
“Let’s be honest; this is where he belongs for now,” said Porter about Jake. “Let’s not fake the funk here.”
“Professional guys that had amateur backgrounds, in their first five or six fights, they weren’t fighting top opposition,” said Akin. “So, why can’t you accept a guy that has been fighting for five or six years fighting a guy like Nate?”
“It’s not about accepting it in its truest form. He’s a professional athlete. He has his [boxing ID], and is a professional athlete that brings an audience to the arena where he fights,” said Porter about Paul.
“That’s why he’s getting paid what he’s getting paid, and he’s getting in the ring with who he’s getting in the ring with.”
“We’re hearing it’s sold out tomorrow as well. You can’t get a ticket,” said Ade about Saturday night’s Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz fight at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.
“It’s completely sold out. Seventeen thousand people are going to pack the arena, which is fantastic. It shows that Jake still has that pool; even after that defeat to Tommy Fury, people still want to see him fight.”
“The main thing is now people want to know, ‘Who are you now after this defeat? How hungry are you now? Do you still care about boxing, or is your job done?’ said Porter about Paul.
“For him to come in here and do what he’s done and the fighters that he’s put on the undercard, he’s still doing a lot.”
