With a confidence bordering on arrogance and laced with a devilish smile, there's little question that Logan Paul brings with him a fair amount of danger into Sunday's Showtime PPV exhibition fight. What remains undetermined, however, is whether the YouTube star will end up being more of a danger to his opponent, retired pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather, or himself.
Paul (0-1), the 26-year-old social media influencer and podcaster who has amassed over 28 million subscribers and 6 billion views on YouTube alone since 2007, didn't sign up for a boxing match so few are giving him a snowball's chance in hell of winning for the kinds of reward most in his spot might be chasing.
Money and fame? Forget about it. Paul can already claim to have acquired a lifetime's share of both. So, what about things like the respect of the traditional boxing world as a "real" fighter, something that his younger brother, 24-year-old Jake Paul (3-0, 3 KOs), has publicly stated is his driving force? The "Maverick," despite his belief that the latter is inevitable should the Paul brothers keep winning, seems like he could care even less about the reality of obtaining it.
"It's a great question, why? Why would I do something like this?" Paul told CBS Sports last week during training camp in Puerto Rico. "Yes, I am crazy. Life is short [and] I've been given one. I have a vessel that is primed to fight and I work hard as shit. So when I was blessed with the opportunity to take everything away from Floyd I said, 'Yeah, let's do that.'"
Paul can barely finish a sentence without inevitably veering the car into the awaiting ditch of a corny joke. It's part of the charm which -- depending upon your comedic tolerance or entertainment preference -- has helped make him a consistently viral force on the internet for both good and alarmingly bad reasons (see his 2017 suicide forest controversy in Japan).
Can't get enough boxing and MMA? Get the latest in the world of combat sports from two of the best in the business. Subscribe to Morning Kombat with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell for the best analysis and in-depth news, including a complete preview of everything Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul below.
But like his younger brother Jake, who announced Tuesday he expects to make his own Showtime PPV boxing debut in August against former UFC champion Tyron Woodley, Logan is a self-proclaimed troll who seems to process the unlikely development of boxing Mayweather as more of a dangerous internet stunt that was too daring to pass up.
In part, this is the modern-day evolution of Evel Knievel and Johnny Knoxville's "Jackass" crew, only it's mixed with the spirit of an MTV "Punk'd" episode. It just so happens that at 6-foot-2 and nearly 200 pounds, the former high school football and wrestling star (who gave up a full academic scholarship studying industrial engineering at Ohio University to do what he claims he was put on this earth to do -- entertain) is menacing enough physically while standing across from the first-time grandfather in Mayweather that the general public likely won't be able to talk itself out laying down enough cash to see how the movie ends.
"You are witnessing the greatest finesse job in history," Paul said. "Why is Floyd Mayweather getting in the ring with me? He has everything to lose. You got finessed. You got finessed, Floyd. Imagine I beat him for one second. I have to imagine taking this fight would be a regret."
On one hand, Paul's outright lack of fear makes him even more dangerous to Mayweather than the physical advantages possessed by the native of West Lake, Ohio. Paul will enter the ring this weekend at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, six inches taller and four inches longer in reach. And that's not even taking into account the 18-year advantage in age for Paul or the fact that he could weigh as much as 50 pounds more than Mayweather, who has never weighed more than 151.5 pounds for a pro fight nor faced anyone bigger than 154 pounds.
"[This fight] is a circus but I'm going to be honest, I wasn't at first. I was really treating this as kind of a respectful exhibition," Paul said. "I wanted to acknowledge Floyd's career path and everything he has accomplished. I was trying to be respectful and then my brother took his hat and [Mayweather] said he was going to kill Jake and I don't take that shit lightly.
"It has become super personal. Just the way he is talking online and he thinks he is in control of this fight to the T. It's going to take 44 years of Floyd's life for him to be humbled."
So how much of a chance is Paul giving himself? He claims there isn't a statistic or percentage that can accurately portray that. He lost his lone pro fight in 2019 in a rematch against fellow YouTuber Olajide "KSI" Olatunji one year after the two fought to a draw under amateur rules.
Paul likes the fact that there is very little video posted publicly of him boxing that shows any degree of high-level aptitude. Most boxing experts respect Paul's chiseled abs and commitment to training under the watchful eye of Milton Lacroix, who guided Shannon Briggs to a piece of the heavyweight title in 2006. Yet it's hard to take serious three years of training and a big weight advantage in light of how competent Mayweather still appears to be.
For all intents and purposes, Mayweather retired from traditional boxing in 2015 following victories over Manny Pacquiao and Andre Berto. But the fighter appropriately known as "Money," who has headlined the four biggest PPV fights in boxing history, stopped former UFC champion Conor McGregor with veritable ease in his final pro bout in 2017 before mopping up the much smaller Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasakawa the following year in an exhibition match.
"Floyd is old and slower. He is going to try to be a little slick but if he does what I think he's going to do, he's going to be in for a long night," Lacroix said. "My thought is he is going to quit in Round 6. If Logan does what he is supposed to do, Floyd will find a way to get out of that ring. One thing a bigger guy has against a small guy is a puncher's chance. You can't doubt that one punch can change the whole outcome of a fight. It's just that Logan can't let Floyd get into his head and he just has to use his skills that I gave him, which is to outclass and outbox a classy boxer.
"A lot of guys came to camp with the same intentions of mind that, 'I'm going to show this guy something and give him a beatdown.' But a lot of them walked out of there with their head between their legs wondering what just happened."
While the confidence of both Paul and Lacroix is commendable, the fact that both talked so much about outboxing Mayweather as opposed to trying to rough up the quicker fighter is concerning. So is Lacroix's claim that Paul's jab has evolved so quickly that it's better than that of former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes.
"I'm not going to make it ugly -- it's going to be the cleanest display of boxing that you are going to see," Paul said. "I think it's going to be two phases that Floyd has in this fight. One, the realization that he might be in over his head. The realization that the kid standing across from him isn't a fake fighter, isn't just a YouTuber and that he had been doing this shit for some time now. Then when he realizes he might have to work a little harder than he thought and he's not getting the ins he thought he would, that's when he's going to hit desperation. I think when Floyd's desperate and I can see in his face that he's broke, that's when I got him. I think that's when he is going to lose."
Has Paul's delusion of three years of training made him a danger to himself against Mayweather? Or do he and his trainer know something the general public doesn't about how this fight might play out on Sunday?
Paul regularly went back to the refrain that he has nothing to lose, which seems like a healthy place to be as the presumed bigger puncher in the fight. He has also taken part in plenty of meditation and visualization of outcomes -- both good and bad -- to help clear his mind of any unnecessary anxiety stepping up to such a bright and foreign stage.
"It's called surrendering," Paul said. "I have visualized every positive and every negative that can possibly happen in this fight so that I'm braced for when it happens. It's a fight, anything can happen. I really don't give a f--- about the negative outcome. I don't know, I'm going in there to do the best I possibly can and I believe that is going to lead to me beating Floyd Mayweather.
"I'm fully equipped. I have all the tools in my tool box. I have all the weapons. My blades are sharp. I want this shit so bad. Again, I have nothing to lose. I have absolutely nothing to lose. I don't care. I don't give a f--- about Floyd Mayweather and his 50-0 record. It means nothing to me. I want to be the No. 1 surprise fighter in the world just surprising everyone."
Come Sunday night, we'll find out once and for all whether Paul is set to fool the boxing world or whether the YouTuber-turned-pugilist is simply fooling himself.
