SPECIAL Shawne Merriman Stop! The Jake Paul Vs Ben Askren Fight Was Not Fixed. So who's next for Jake Paul?

from me. I got an opportunity to watch that Paul for some time now up closing personal So I've seen him work, So I'm gonna be a little bit biased, uh in how people are shocked about him beating Ben. Now, let me get this straight. I'm waking up in the morning, I'm seeing everyone saying on social media that the fight was fixed, that it was staged. I just want to remind people that this is in nineteen seventy five what they should throw fights back in the day, and none

of that made sense. It's more of a I just think that people don't want to give Jake Paul to credit. Now. I'm not sitting up here and crowning him king of boxing and he's the best fighter ever. But this kid has been he's been fighting in boxing and training just for you know, a couple of years now, and I think we've all seen his progression. But give him credit. You know, it's time to give him some credit because even now still people will come in and say that

Ben is in a boxer. Let me let me remind you been asking is a decorated fighter maybe m m A. But he's a decorated fighter. He's been in some real battles, some real wars with some top notch level, high class fighters, and it's beating him. So yeah, I'm not gonna give him the upper hand in boxing, which he shouldn't. Never came in his fight with the upper hand anyway, because Jake has been training and boxing and sparring pro boxes

for the last almost two years. I'll take it back to say this, just as everybody else, when you see YouTuber or social media star, uh, internet star or whatever you wanna call it, come and do something else, you automatically have a red flag. You don't have the confidence, you don't have the uh, you don't have to trust that this guy is gonna go out and do things

he's doing right now in the boxing ring. That changed for me when I got a chance to go and stay with Jake Paul and his team b J for his great coach and Shane Mosley's place up in Big Bear, why I trained with him for a few days. It totally changed my opinion of how I saw not only Jake Paul, but anybody is willing to put in a time and effort and transitioning from what they do to something else. One thing I would like to remind everybody

is that you don't play fighting. And I see people all the time that there's calling certain people out and calling either even pro boxers or pro fighters out on social media, and to me, it's just a bunch of cloud chasing, which we have a lot of it nowadays, so that's understandable. But one thing I can tell you is you don't play fighting. Nate Robinson found that out, and some of these other guys are fighting out who's just kind of going to test the waters. I'm a

big advocate and I've talked about it for years. I'm talking about it now. I've I've always think that Uh, the guys should go and transition and and pick up some form of or discipline of combat sports. I think it's good for you. I think it's uh to have that regiment. I think to have that motive to get up and go and learn something every day. It's it's it's great, great to do. But you can't play fighting.

So let's just rewind this back a little bit and uh j Paul knocking out Nate Robinson, which we all seen that it became one of the biggest memes of of I can't get this pandemic, got me all messed up, um, but it became one of the biggest memes on the Internet and social media. Nave Robinson quickly found out that if you don't train, and you don't have the backing and and and and the proper technique and going back going into uh fighting boxing, especially that you're gonna get

knocked out. You're gonna get embarrassed. So everyone said, hey, you know, Nate Robinson didn't train, he's a basketball player and all this other stuff, and if if Jake Paul fought a real fighter, then it's gonna be a different story. Well, been asking is a real fighter, He's retired, and he look just as out of shape as he's always been been. Asking has never been the uh he never passed the eye the eye the eye contest, right, he never passed that.

But he's always been a damn good fighter. So what now? I think what now is? And you look on social media as I did after the fight, which is a long, long, long fight with way too many performances, I think that you're going to if you're trying to convert any kind of boxing fans, m m A fans, combat sports fans in general, you gotta take out some of the performances. They were great, just to people with great dog Cat,

don't I mean? And too short ice Cube and Snoop Dogg obviously legends, you know, take two or three those acts, keep those and move on where it's entertaining still, but you gotta lose the extra you got to. You're just gonna turn too many fight fans away who are well, you're trying to convert some of those fight fans into what you're doing trailer. I think they're doing a great job, but get rid of some of those performances. That's just

my opinion. The second part of it is is that going into this fight, there was a lot of people that gave Jake Paul no shot. Why because he's a YouTube fighter, he's in that star. Oh he only knocked out basketball players and other YouTube stars. Well, I thought for sure coming into this fight and if he won, it was going to change people the opinion of him and anybody else who puts in the time and effort

to transition into combat sports. Well it didn't. In fact, when I looked on social media after the fight, I saw more hate. I saw that Ben Asking wasn't a fighter, that Jake Paul should fight a real fighter. I saw that it was staged. It was a fluke, it was set up, and quite frankly, I think that the rev did a great job in stopping a fight because it could have got ugly. Sometimes you don't need to see a one knockout a guy laying out cold before you

call a fight. If a guy can't walk to you on a straight line and got on his drunk goggles, that's it's time to call the fight. I also seeing that, and I go back to the cloud, chasing the the trying to get notoriety, guys calling Jake Paul out all over some some who haven't done well in their own sport, which made no sense to me. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R

to listen live. So you're you're calling guys out because you didn't do well in your sport and you've been beat up, you lost plenty of fights. But yet you want to cloud and fighting somebody who's only been fighting for two years? What good does that do? What good does that dude, Jake Paul? What good does that do anybody who is trying to make money in the sport. And let me remind you, guys, these guys are out fighting for money, and I'll tell guys, it's in lights

out extreme fighting my fighters. You're fighting to make money and take care of your family. So if you're a fighter, they don't have a big following. You've already been beat up and had many losses in your own sport. Stop calling now, Jake Paul or anybody who you see can be an easy come up in or easy cloud chase into another field. All right, you didn't you want successful successful in what you did? Stop trying to get cloud and fight someone who you know you can possibly be,

And what good is it to Jake Paul? Did mind you? I don't I believe Jake Paul made five plus million if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken last night. I don't know what the pay per view is gonna come back in, but I'm assumed that they are at least a million pay per views and up. Why would Jake Paul or anybody fight you to go backwards? The object in this fight game is to make as much money as you can. Why you can because it don't last forever. And I'll be the first one to tell you that

coming from the NFL, I don't last forever. You make your money, you provide for your family, and you move on. So what's next? I you know, whether it's another m M A fighter, whether it's another boxer, which I don't see is gonna happen, because I don't unless you're a Floyd Mayweather or uh you know, a bigger now Manny pac Our or or just you know someone with a

bigger name Danny Garcia. I mean, it's just just someone with a bigger name in boxing, which is not gonna be much of a match because you're more skilled than Jake Paul or another guy who is starting out starting to fight. So what's next? Look, and I saw that Jake Paul wants Nadias. I think that would be a great fight. I think that obviously, you know, Nadias is a much better boxer, a much better athlete than that been asking. I think that's the next fight to go.

But what if let's let's say this, and and and Nadiaz is one of the one of the badasses of of of of our time, right, even though I'm just talking by the combat sports in general, just just a just a badass across the board. What if? What's what? What is it gonna take for Jake Paul or any one of these guys to go and try who transitioning over before they get some credit and not to be staged or not to be set up. What's it gonna take?

My guess is this, you know, Jake Paul and and a lot of these guys who are transitioned over in a Frank Mull who also afforded that car to afford the professional boxer didn't look as bad as I thought he would. But anybody who knows the fight game and understand how things go. Um Frank Mull could have been knocked out at any given time. It looked like he was being uh, they were being it was letting up

on him. This guy was a world champion boxer and couldn't knocked him out any any given time in my opinion. But I can tell you this. I can tell you who started all of it. And whether you want to hate, love or do whatever you want to do, I can tell you who started. It's Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. They set the tone, They opened the floodgates for these things to happen. And this is why combat sports, boxing, m m A, whatever it is, will continue continue to

get bigger. The sports are going to continue to grow. You're gonna have a lot of retired athletes, a lot of uh, you know, celebrities, entertainers who are will now uh look to start fighting other entertainers, other athletes. And this is something I've been talking about for the last few years. This is this is where combat sports is going.

And I and I say this and anybody who have a problem with this not And I come across a lot of fighters that initially I don't know so much now that initially had a problem with these things taking place. You know, you have a Jake Paul or Someone's coming into the industry and they're making five hundred thousand I think been asking last night took home between eight hundred thousand and a million bucks. Ben Ashkin didn't make a million bucks and three fights fighting. M m m A right.

So what you're gonna have here is a different landscape of combat sports. It's gonna start happening here soon. And any any fighter, or any fan or anybody that has a problem with this, don't understand what you have a problem with. This is going to grow the sport. More doors are gonna be open, more things is gonna happen, More opportunities gonna happen for the fighters. And if I'm

a fighter, I want these things to happen. I want to have an opportunity to fight and knock out a social media star, a YouTuber, a basketball player, football player, rugby star, track star, whatever it is, I want to I want that opportunity because that opportunity means more money for me. So when you fight, or anybody is coming into the fight game or in the fight game that has a problem with this or or think it's a freak show. Maybe it is, maybe it's a fat Maybe

it's a freak show. But people are buying it to pay for you show. It is a real thing, and people are tuned in and you and tell by things trending on social media last night and now major outlets, major TV, major streaming are all covering it because it is a thing. So what is it gonna take for Jake Paul to get some respect? Does he does he have to fight a guy like Nadias? Does he have

to fight another boxer? In my opinion, if I'm Jake Paul, I keep picking my opponents the way I want to pick them, and I'll keep calling out everybody who I want to call out. And if if I'm a fighter on m M, a side boxer, whoever it may be, and have an opportunity to take a fight like this and make make that this type of money, you take it. So those are my thoughts. Man, I would I was sitting back and and watching the fight just everybody, like

everyone else, made a little money. Myself, well not a little money, a lot of a lot of money. Last night. The bett the Bett Knowedge were nice for me. But this is the thing, and this is the thing that's gonna be around for a long time. I myself have been working on transitioning athletes from other sports into M and man combat sports. I think it's a beautiful thing and I think it's gonna be a thing of the future and it's gonna be around for a very long time.

So who who's next? Who do you guys want to see? Fight? Thank you guys for listening in to another lights our podcast or me Shawn Merriman, And that was it was cool for me because look, this is this is big. It's gonna be a big thing with athletes, with celebrities, YouTubers, internet stars, you name it. It's gonna be around for a long long time. Make sure you guys keep leaving those reviews, keep subscribing. I see your comments. Uh, just

loving the podcast. I don't even know what subscription based number one now, but it's up there and it's all because of you guys, So I appreciate it. Again. Once again, We're coming back at you the next few days or next week. We're just gonna keep coming with these high