MMA Fighting - Reaction | Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley 2 Set For Dec. 18

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Tommy Fury is out of the Dec. 18 fight with Jake Paul and former UFC champ Tyron Woodley will get his chance at redemption as he steps in on less than two weeks notice on Showtime PPV. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee react to the big news of the day. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody. Didn't think we'd be doing a video like this today, but here we are. Mike Heck here from MAAfighting.com reacting to some very big news on this Monday morning, December 6th, 2021. A very busy couple of weeks coming up in the combat sports world. Of course, UFC 269 goes down this Saturday.

It's the final pay-per-view event of 2021. And then next Saturday, we were scheduled to see Jake Paul compete against Tommy Fury in a boxing match on Showtime pay-per-view. Now we come to find out that is no longer happening. Jake Paul took to social media confirming some initial reports that came out last night that Tommy Fury is out of the fight due to some medical issues. He was forced to withdraw less than two weeks before this event. Of course, like Jake Paul or not, the guy does some pretty big business for Showtime.

They invested a lot in the promotion of this fight. conferences and different parts of the globe, promo packages, all of that stuff. And sometimes, folks, an important lesson. When you manifest something so passionately, when you keep putting it out in the universe, sometimes the universe will change its course. And that is what has happened for the former UFC welterweight champion of the world, Tyron Woodley, because he's going to get his rematch on 12 days notice in Tampa, Florida, against Jake Paul.

They fought in August. It was a competitive fight. Paul won via split decision. We thought a rematch might be possible with the whole tattoo bet and the aftermath. And although not the original plan, Christmas has come early for one Tyrone Woodley and much like his nickname states,

he is the chosen one to get a massive opportunity to write what he passionately believes is a wrong. So with that, let us welcome in, my best friend, the Prince of Positivity, Mr. Alexander K. Lee and A.K., I'm going to drop a silly 80s cheeseball music pun on the masses right now.

In the combat sports world, this is just another manic Monday. Is it not? Your reaction to this news that Tommy Fury is out and Tyron Woodley is in for his chance at redemption against Jake Paul. Sad, sad, Mike.

Happy to see you. Happy that we rarely get to record back-to-back shows. We had just done onto the next one yesterday. So always a pleasure. to record with my best friend Mike Heck, but sad reasons that you and I are once again together. I'm someone who's fully embraced sort of this whole,

you know, the Jake Paul, Logan Paul, the free show boxing stuff. And this is a very logical matchup. They'd build up to it in the right way, you know, with Tommy Fury being on the last Paul card.

Not a great performance by either man in their last fight. But it made sense for them to go up against each other. Again, it doesn't answer sort of people saying, oh, Jake Paul needs to fight like a real boxer. but Tommy Fury fit perfectly. Reality TV Star has his own pro boxing experience. I think it was 7 and 0.

Would have been 7-0 heading into this matchup. So it was a logical way to go about it. I think it might, I don't know how, I think it would have drawn more interest from certain demographics than either the Woodley or the Ascran fights, of course, because Tommy Fury is a bit more of a celebrity over there in the UK. But we don't have that anymore.

We don't have anymore, Mike. We have the rematch, which has some heat behind it. I don't think any of us expected this to happen under any other circumstances than a replacement thing. I don't think after this, Paul was like, yeah, I'm going to do the Woodley rematch now. So, yes, very fortunate for Woodley. Sounds like he'll probably be getting another nice payday, at least comparable, if not equal, or more than the first one. And Jake Paul is saying he'll give the chosen one an extra 500 grand if he can knock Jake Paul out. Yeah, I mean, this is all pretty wild.

And you sort of mentioned the interest of maybe the general masses, maybe the boxing community, because there are some people at least coming out of the first fight with Woodley that, you know, Tommy Fury is an actual boxer. I know if you add up the established records of the guys he fought, he fought Anthony Taylor and couldn't finish him. Still people thought Tommy Fury, along with, you know, his half brother Tyson Fury being a big part of the camp, this could be the guy to give Jake Paul the work, some intrigue there, like you said. but at the same time, Woodley did have his moments in the first fight.

But as I'm seeing in the comments right now, a lot of the things that have frustrated MMA fans about Woodley over the years, the gunshiness, if you will, that rears his ugly head in these fights. It reared its ugly head again in this fight. But when it was time to actually pull the trigger, he did. And he almost knocked Jake Paul out of the ring at one point.

So Woodley, when he was on and he got a little angry and just went after it, things were very interesting. So you personally, AK, Does this fight interest you more than the Tommy Fury fight? No. No, I was curious what's happening with Tommy Fury. Keep in mind, as an honored employee of M.A. fighting, I did have the chance to transcribe the most recent press conference featuring the Fury family and Jake Paul.

So I was sort of invested in it. There was one story about John Fury, the father of the Fury family, really, really getting some vulgar back and forth. with Jake Paul and then Tyson Fury also, of course, was there and also had his words for Jake Paul. So part of me is like, why did I even do that if this fight wasn't going to happen? So there's some regret, some remorse on my part, and I wish that I would at least be rewarded, Mike, with the game to see these two fight. But from a competitive standpoint, there is some entry. Again, like you said, the first fight, not between Woodley and up, Jake Paul, not super memorable.

It was tense, I guess, but I don't think anyone will go back and watch that fight. anyone has even bothered to watch that fight again and be like, oh, yeah, this was a real classic we need to see again. I'm kind of leaning towards wanting the Tommy Fury matchup, which probably will be rebooked at some point now with a little more steam behind it. But it is disappointing that we're getting a rematch, which feels very much like a second or third option for Jake Paul as opposed to the Tommy Fury fight. Manic Monday, indeed, AK.

Now, just from like an MMA perspective, I know this is a boxing match and things like that, but we've seen time and time again, especially in this sort of post-pandemic UFC era, and even in Bellator and some of these other promotions, maybe even in the boxing world, that when these big fights happen and they happen on short notice where, like the first fight, we knew for a couple months, Tyron Woodley was going to fight Jake Paul, and he was doing all the media and he was trying to sell the fight and do all this stuff. And not only do you have to do that, but you have to get a competitive mindset to go in with all that pressure. Does the 12 days notice?

Because Tyrone Woodley has done interviews and has said, like, I'm training. I want to do four fights in 2022, four different combat sports. So the guy apparently is in shape. He's getting ready for competition, right? From a mental standpoint, does the 12 days notice considering where both of these guys are, how they've been getting ready for whatever was coming up for them? Do you think this favors Woodley more or do you think this favors Jake Paul more? Yeah, look, it could be really good for Tar and Woodley.

You do get the sense in his recent UFC fights and in his boxing bout with Jake Paul, the first one, that maybe he's overthinking things. He's a smart guy. I think he's a cerebral fighter. I think that was shown, and again, in his championship run as well. He's not this berserker. He's not this. Again, he's not this. I'm just going to go in there and throw wildly.

He has a game plan for things. And I wonder if there was just too much thinking, which creates that, you know, afraid to pull the trigger persona that we've kind of seen from Woodley. time and time again, and it's unfortunate we've seen that. So as you said, he has been training constantly. There was a report that, or at least maybe Dan Hardy had put it out there, that they were trying to arrange a 12-round boxing bout to take place in spring of upcoming spring, 22. So I don't know, again, I don't know how close that fight was coming to fruition. I don't recall Toron Woodley addressing it.

I do know that Dan Hardy was pushing for it. Of course, he's been wanting to fight again for a long time. So but if any of that is true, then Woodley, it probably is in great shape. And yes, maybe without, they'll probably arrange some, we do have two weeks until, yeah, two weeks until this goes down. So they could arrange some emergency sort of press conference or Zoom call or something. But it certainly feels like less pressure, less distraction than the first time. So again, I, by the way, I don't want to sell this fight too hard.

I just can't imagine it being that different from the first one. But I will say if you do think it's going to be different, there is reason for it. And that is a less distracted, less contemplative Tyne Woodley, who just has to go in there and fight. And he's been in there. He's done eight rounds with Jake Paul now. He knows what to expect. Maybe he comes in with a slightly different strategy, more aggression.

Fingers crossed for anyone who decides to buy this thing. Do you feel like heading, like, getting heading in the first fight? And I know, like, Ariel Hawani talked about it a lot on the return of the M.A. Or like how big of a moment that was for Tyron Woodley. It was almost like a must win. And he's somehow manifested this rematch to happen. in the most bizarre circumstances, right? How pivotal is this for Tyrant Woodley?

Does the, does the short notice kind of help him in that sense? Like, if he goes out and gets pieced away for however many rounds this fight is, I don't even know because we haven't seen an actual full press release. We don't know yet. Yeah. We don't know yet. Yeah. We don't know yet.

Yeah. But like, let's say Jake Paul just goes out there and just dominates him, whether he stops him in like the fifth round or he gets an eight round, easy decision. Do we look at it and say like, you know what? Tarin Woodley took this fight on 12 days notice. kudos or does he have even more pressure on this fight than he did heading into the first one? No, no. This is, this is Christmas gravy for Taran. House money?

House money, man. He wanted the rematch. He may have got the tattoo. We still don't know if that was real or not. I'm sure people saw. He put out the picture. The I love Jake Paul tattoo on his middle finger. Some people were saying it looked temporary. It was either a fake tattoo or it was a real tattoo, but in such a place and done in such a way that it will just kind of naturally fade on its own. So I don't know. I don't know how real a tattoo was. But at least he kind of went through with it. So in some sense, justice was served. But yeah, look, he wanted this fight.

This is found money. He did not. He probably thought once the Tommy Fury, like the rest of us, once the Tommy Fury fight was booked, this isn't going to happen. I'm not seeing Jake Paul in the ring again. I'm never going to see him in any combat sports scenario again. It's the ship has sailed.

So again, with Christmas just around the corner, this is going to be a nice payday for him again. We don't know how much, but if it's anything close to probably what he got paid for the first one, I'm sure Tyron Woodley and his team are very, very happy. So, yeah, win or lose. People can talk about legacy if they want. If you're of the camp that this is going to sting his legacy,

if he loses again to Jake Paul and if it's an even worse fight than last time, I understand that. But again, at the end of the day, legacy doesn't pay the bills, excuse me, and Woodley's going to be very happy. And I don't know if you thought his legacy was hurt by the first boxing match with Paul, I don't see how this could make it that much worse. So hopefully he does get a chance to fight in other combat. sports in 2022. But for now, uh, he's just looking ahead to this one. And, and I bet it's going to be

a fun night for him regardless. All right. Last thing before we kind of wrap up here, I mean, if you got some questions, here we go. I'll, we'll just kind of, kind of rehash this for anyone who just jumped in and it's just like, what the hell is going on here? Uh, so we're here reacting to this news because Tommy Fury is out medical condition of some, of some sort of injury or I don't really know the specifics, but this is what reports had said. Jake Paul came out. he had some obviously unkind words towards Tommy Fury calling him the biggest fill in the blank in boxing. So you kind of have to feel bad for Tommy Fury because Jake Paul makes an interesting point.

Now he's going to pay 60 bucks to watch me when he could have been making millions to box him. So Tired Woodley is in to replace Tommy Fury on 12 days notice. So that's why we're talking about this. This is why this is very big news. So last question for me, AK, do you think this fight goes any differently than the first one? again, I'm the Prince of Positivity. Like I said, I'm optimistic. I think often we see rematches go differently,

but Woodley looked like what he was in the first fight. We know he's a good fighter, but he's a completely inexperienced boxer. I know it's a part of all of his camps. I know it's something he prepared for. He really put the work in for that Jake Paul fight, but you don't just become this killer boxer right of the gate. I don't care who you're training with.

I don't care what combat sports experience you have in the past. Pro boxing is a completely different beast than MMA. And we saw that. We saw that and yet also saw the worst tendencies of Taran Woodley that we have seen in his unfortunate, you know, sort of last run with the UFC there. So I like to be optimistic, but I just cannot see this one going differently. Maybe it'll be unanimous decision this time. I think last time I had it maybe six rounds to two for Paul. But again, the scoring was so flimsy.

You could have it five, three, Paul. You could have had it five, three, Woodley. I don't even know. It was such a forgettable fight. But this time around, I'm still going Paul by decision. I imagine that'll be pretty heavily favored when the odds come around. And I hope to be wrong. I think it's a little different.

I'm leaning Paul to win again by decision. But I actually think the 12 days notice helps Tyrone Woodley here. I don't think it gives him the opportunity to not really overthink things. I think at times we will see that frustrating to watch. Tyron Woodley, but I think we might see more of the Tyrone Woodley that fought Vicente Lucay. He's just going to go out and just get after it and just see what happens. And plus, if you're throwing another $500,000 to knock him out, you better go out there and try to knock that dude out for an extra $500,000.

So we'll see what happens. And this is going to be an interesting event for a few reasons. One, you got this fight. Two, Mandusarano, great to see her back there and getting the pay that she deserves. women's boxing needs this surge. And whether you like Jake Paul or not, he's providing it. We also have Frank Gore versus Darren Williams, which is super interesting. It's just interesting.

Two guys who have been training in combat sports for quite some time. And then by the way, we get Anthony Taylor versus Chris Avila. And you know who's going to be there more than likely? One Nathan Diaz will probably be there. Oh, Lord. So could we be planting some seeds, perhaps? Maybe, but if I'm Nate Diaz, I'm getting my ass to Tampa next week. So we have the release.

We have the release, Mike. It is now being called Leave No Doubt. That is what Jake Paul said in his video that he put out. It will, as it was, Schedule of Time Fury, Paul Woodley 2 will also be a cruiserweight contest, 192 pounds, and an eight-rounder as their first fight was as well. So, yeah, everything else the same. December 18th, Amelie Arena, Showtime, pay-per-view.

So showtime, very quick to kind of throw this one together. And again, maybe to some people more appealing, maybe to some people less appealing. I'm not sure. To me, a little less appealing. Maybe just because we saw Woodley and Paul happen already. Certainly if this is the first time, if you're asking me what was more intriguing to me, the Paul Woodley match the first time or him fighting Tommy Fury. I mean, Paul Woodley by a country mile.

But the rematch, I don't know. I'm a little cool on it. And the press release is saying a medical issue, a medical issue that impacted his training camp. That is the exact wording from Showtime for Tommy Fury. Well, we wish Tommy Fury the best. And there is going to be one other person in Tampa that I can confirm. This guy. Oh, my goodness.

This guy. I will be there. Florida, Mike. Florida Mike. Florida Mike. Oh, my goodness. Yes. And hopefully, listen, so I've been to Florida twice this year covering events.

This will be the third. BKFC 19 was the first one. I went to the Mitor Belfort, Evander Holyfield. card, which kind of broke my heart, but it was still kind of cool watching Anderson Silver do the damn thing. And now I get to cover this one. So bizarre coverage over the last half of 2021 for me. So I'm looking forward to it. My fur, I don't even know what to expect. I've very, I have no expectations. And that's probably what makes this best. That's right, Jeremiah. K. DJ had grand arrival to Florida. We'll see what happens. So come say hi. And

that's it. As you can tell them, feeling better. So I'm ready to go. So that's it. That's our reaction. Obviously, we'll be talking about it much more throughout the week. Of course, Area Hawani will be back with the MMA hour about two hours from right now as you record at 11.01 a.m. For those listening to the podcast, may not affect you right now. Of course, between the links coming up this week, I'm sure we'll be talking about this more. AK will be there as well, taken on Phoenix Carnivali. And then UFC 29 fight week as well. So these next couple weeks are just going to be, we're going to be sprinting, sprinting right out the game. and follow along with us here at Mayfiting.com. So for AK, I am Mike Hack. Thanks for watching.

Get ready for some craziness next Saturday in Tampa. Have a great rest of the day, everybody. And May hour at 1 o'clock. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.