The End of The Jake Paul Experiment

For some time, we have heard the cry from the boxing purists: The Jake Paul show is just a circus. Well, that may be, but I think of it a little differently. I see it more as an experiment.

What happens if you take an athletic young man, give him all the best training, sparring, nutrition, and matchmaking, and set him on a course to become a world champion? Can he do it? In other words, can your average Joe, with all the benefits that money can buy, rise to the elite level of professional boxing, or does it take something more – something money can’t buy? No, I’m not talking about heart, grit, or dedication.

Jake Paul has all of those things. I’m talking about genetics. Are champions born or made? Can you rise to the championship level without having the benefit of an extraordinary set of genes that give you something in the way of speed and/or power that almost none of us possess? For me, that’s what the Jake Paul experiment was all about, and I think we got the answer Friday night.

For a while, the perception of Jake Paul’s chances at championship glory was starting to shift. No less an authority than Paulie Malignaggi was speculating that maybe Jake Paul could one day become a world champion. No, he didn’t suggest Paul was a great fighter, but rather that through clever matchmaking and the massive profusion of title trinkets available, Paul might one day be able to snatch one up.

I didn’t do any polls, but I don’t think he was the only one talking – or at least thinking – that way. The idea of Jake Paul Champion was starting to seem not so impossible after all. Maybe, with grit and determination, combined with all the best training and matchmaking money could buy, an average Joe could become a world champion. And maybe Jake Paul would prove that to the entire world.

Then came Friday night. For six rounds, Paul could literally do nothing but run. Nothing! Yes, he was outsized and outclassed; I get that. But if Paul, after six years as a professional, still can’t offer any observable resistance against an elite level foe – an old and ring rusty and past-his-prime one at that – then I think it’s safe to say he would not be able to defeat Jai Opetaia, Gilberto Ramirez, David Benavidez, or any other top level cruiserweight.

Moreover, there’s no reason to believe he will get much better than he is right now. Indeed, I’m not sure he’s much better now than he was two years ago. None of this is to disparage Paul. It took enormous courage for him to even step in the ring with Anthony Joshua, and he paid the price. He is a real fighter, not some pampered pretend YouTuber passing himself off as one.

If he can’t become champion, it will not be for lack of trying, lack of grit, lack of courage or determination, or lack of the best of everything money could buy. It will be for one reason and one reason only–he’s missing the genetic material encoded in the DNA that a man must have to become a world champion. The experiment is over, and the results are in: Champions are born, not made.

But you purists knew that all along, right?