Jake Paul's MSG Fight Has Been Cancelled After A Weight Dispute Between The Fighters
I have been blogging this saga from when Tommy Fury pulled out, and now Rahman is being said to pull out. If you didn't see the Tik Tok this is what's happening. There was a discrepancy with Rahman's weight. Jake Paul laid out the situation here.
So here is what I think happened. Getting Rahman down to 200 lbs was going to be difficult. The guy fought at that weight when he was younger, but I bet Rahman agreed to get at that weight just so he could take the fight. Rahman's party probably thought they could force Paul's hand by holding the fight hostage with the weight stipulation. Rahman at 215 would absolutely take out Jake Paul. So Rahman's team agreed to try to negotiate later. The lower weight stipulation disadvantages Rahman. We are not absolutely sure what really happened. No one mentions the rehydration clause by Paul. Rahman signed up for weigh-in at 200 lbs but we don't know what he was allowed to step in the ring and fight at. We don't know if Rahman was saying he wanted to be able to rehydrate to 215 after the weigh-in. The NYS boxing commission stepping in is also valid. Paul could have constructed the contract so that Rahman could not sufficiently rehydrate at 200. All these contracts and whatnot are extremely weird. We do not know what is in Rahman's contract regarding the weight.
The thing I noticed about this fight is that Rahman didn't want to play ball from the beginning. In the promotion, he repeatedly exposed Paul for buying him Instagram followers and putting shady stuff regarding rehydration in the contract. This wasn't a guy who wanted to just take the money and be a punching bag for Paul.
What I am thinking may have happened is that they put in a clause about rehydration (The amount of weight that can be put on after the weigh-in) to get a dehydrated and easily tired Rahman. This would be an easier opponent for Jake Paul to take down in later rounds. A 200lbs dehydrated Rahman is much different than a 215-lb rehydrated Rahman. I honestly thought this would be Paul's toughest fight. Rahman is an actual boxer. I feel like that is more likely than what Dillon Danis is ascertaining.
All these weird things are why Boxing Commissions and WBA or WBC were all created. With these fights, we are just seeing problems that unorganized boxing had in the early 20th century.