Jake Paul has lashed out at Canelo Alvarez and said he had been “bought by sports-washing, shady characters” after the Mexican ditched plans to fight the former YouTuber and instead signed a four-fight deal with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season.
Plans were reportedly advanced for Paul and Alvarez to meet in Las Vegas in May in a fight likely to land on Netflix but the WBA, WBC and IBF super middleweight champion instead pulled out to fight in the Middle East.
Paul, who took to social media and even showed what he claimed was a signed contract between the two, was not impressed.
Warning: this video contains bad language
Exposing Canelo🤦🏼♂️ pic.twitter.com/oY5A6isKVR
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) February 8, 2025
In the video, he said: “The truth is, you could be bought.
“You’re a money-hungry squirrel chasing your next nut. The truth is, these sports-washing, shady characters are paying you hundreds of millions of dollars to stop our fight from happening because they couldn’t fathom the fact that they can’t create a bigger fight than me and you.”
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Paul unimpressed by Alalshikh remarks
In announcing the deal with Alvarez, Saudi’s boxing fixer and chairman of the kingdom’s General Entertainment Authority Turki Alalshikh, indicated he felt his man getting into the ring with Paul was beneath him.
In response, Paul said: “Claiming he’s not fighting YouTubers. Bulls—.
“Claiming he’s fighting real fighters, but he’s fighting Crawford, a 135-pound fighter, and running from a real fighter like David Benavidez.”
As part of his deal with Riyadh Season, Alvarez will take on Terence Crawford in Las Vegas on September 13.
Paul says his fights will be bigger
The news of Alvarez’s decision is a bitter blow for Netflix, who had hoped to build on the success of Paul’s fight with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson with a bout against Alvarez.
Paul beat Tyson over eight rounds and, although the fight itself was a disappointment, it was a commercial success for Netflix with over 64 million concurrent streams.
“You call me a YouTuber, but you’ve never had a boxing match as big as mine,” Paul said. “I promise you one thing, Canelo. Any fight that you do this year, mine will be bigger.”
