YouTube boxer Jake Paul has claimed his fight against Nate Diaz sold 500,000 pay-per-views in the US.
Paul returned to winning ways after suffering the first defeat of his boxing career at the hands of Tommy Fury in February by beating Diaz earlier this month. He knocked down the UFC legend on route to winning a one-sided unanimous decision and has since called for an MMA rematch against him.
Less than two weeks on from the fight, Paul is pleased with how the event went financially but it doesn't rank as the biggest pay-per-view of his boxing career. It's understood his loss to Fury sold around 800,000 pay-per-view buys, which made it the second-highest selling fight of the year behind Gervonta Davis vs Ryan Garcia which sold 1.2million buys.
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“It’s looking like 500,000 pay-per-views," Paul said on his B/S podcast about the Diaz fight. "The biggest gate and that’s US pay-per-views. It means more because it costs more in the US. So a massive number, massive success. There’s a statistic that shows the Google searches from that night. We were the number one most searched Google trend by like 10 times. Trended everywhere. Biggest gate. Biggest ticket sales. Biggest sponsorship.”
Ten YouTube boxing fights we must see in 2023 including KSI vs Jake PaulPaul didn't pass up the opportunity to take aim at his bitter YouTube rival KSI whilst discussing his win against Diaz. KSI returned to the ring after a three-year layoff last August to fight rapper Swarmz and professional boxer in a farcical two fights in one night event, which sold around 230,000 buys. It's understood that both of his fights this year against FaZe Temperrr and Joe Fournier also sold less than Paul vs Diaz.
"The last three fights he sold like 100,000, 150,000 and then like 200,000. People like to talk about the success of Logan vs KSI 1 but in terms of typical boxing it's still great numbers, but it was still only 300,000 buys at $20. For regular boxing, it's great but 300,000 buys at $20 is like $6million. That pays for like the cost of the event, congratulations you paid for the cost of the event," Paul added.
Despite Paul's dismissive comments about his rival, KSI's second fight against Jake's brother Logan was a huge success as it sold two-million pay-per-views which places it in the top five highest selling-fights in history. KSI is currently preparing to fight Jake's former opponent Fury as they meet on October 14 in Manchester, with Logan vs Dillon Danis also featuring on the card.