boxing

Jake Paul vs Daniel Dubois? YouTuber wants to 'test the limits of what's possible' against top heavyweight

Jake Paul intends to "test the limits of what’s possible" in his boxing career, his promotional partner Nakisa Bidarian tells Sky Sports.

Paul rose to considerable fame as a YouTuber and has courted further attention in his 12-fight professional boxing career.

He has lost once, to Tommy Fury, and most recently outpointed 58-year-old Mike Tyson over eight two-minute rounds.

The Mike Tyson fight was sanctioned as a pro bout in Texas and filled the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, as well as drawing a vast global broadcast audience.

Paul's enthusiasm for boxing and his influence on the sport shows no signs of abating.

Bidarian, who co-founded Most Valuable Promotions with Paul, said his next move will be decided in the coming weeks.

"He has plenty of options. He's going to take a few days off and then we're going to sit down next week with him, his advisers, his coaches and determine the next steps," Bidarian told Sky Sports.

"This was an opportunity to grab the world's attention and remind them why this is such a beautiful sport. Jake played a major part in doing that in his match against Mike Tyson and strategically we positioned Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano right before them.

"In terms of what's next for Jake - whatever he wants it to be, to be honest."

Paul is almost unignorable, and high-profile fighters have pressed publicly for a fight with him.

"He's been called out by Daniel Dubois. He's been called out by Artur Beterbiev. He's been called out by Gervonta Davis, Ryan Garcia, by about 400 other boxers that most of us have never heard of," Bidarian said.

The prospect of Paul boxing Britain's Daniel Dubois, the IBF heavyweight champion of the world no less, who spectacularly knocked out Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium in September, seems far-fetched.

But the idea appears to have come from Dubois himself.

"He was on Jake Paul's undercard in August of 2021," Bidarian said of Dubois. "When Jake got that DM, he sent it to me and said: 'How funny is this, how the world has turned.'"

Bidarian argued that it could lead to something.

"Jake's feedback to me was I want to do that fight. Not now. But I want to do that fight," he said.

"To be a world champion at cruiserweight, he wants to do that. The other is to test the limits of expectations. Test the limits of what's possible.

"This event with Mike Tyson, that tested the limits of what was possible for the world to see and him fighting Anthony Joshua or Daniel Dubois is kind of the same thing.

"Jake weighed in at 227lbs but really he walks around at 215. But he'll do it for the right environment, the right framework," he added.

"It isn't about the money. He's made lots of money from the time he was 18 years old. It's really about disruption.

"It's really about doing things that make you say: 'Wow, that really happened.' That's what excites us."