Afterhours at the lavish Kamani Club gym deep in Al Quoz 3, and Jake Paul is busy plotting his next, potentially pivotal, move as a professional boxer.
It is the Friday before fight week, a day out from Paul and his sizeable team transferring to Saudi Arabia, where the YouTube-sensation-cum-boxer will finally face long-time nemesis Tommy Fury in the headline bout at Diriyah Arena on the outskirts of Riyadh.
The fight, between two unbeaten but still-emergent pro pugilists, has been almost two years in the making, scheduled previously for Florida and then New York’s Madison Square Garden, both times falling out because of issues – the injury, the visa problem – on Fury’s side.
Inadvertently, it has provided Paul plenty of time to study his rival.
At Kamani, as the sweat streams from inside his sweatsuit while he warms up on the treadmill, Paul’s gaze is focused on the huge television screen on the far wall directly in front, where a collection of Fury’s past few fights play on loop.
Paul, 26 and entering his seventh pro boxing bout since his debut in early 2020 – six wins, four by knockout – clearly takes this part of his expanding and extensive empire seriously. Fury has been studied, picked apart even.
“We watch that film a lot,” Paul tells The National, little less than one week later, from his Saudi base. “Over and over and over again. Just to engrain in my own mind exactly what he does, when he makes certain movements and motions, which punches he throws when he’s backing up, coming forward, what combinations he likes to go through.
“This whole thing’s the sweet science and it’s an art. It’s a chess game. So I’m hunting my prey. That’s why you see that focus locked in on the treadmill like that, because this is life or death as far as I’m concerned. I’m treating myself as if I were a lion, studying what the gazelles are doing in the fields.”
Paul doubts Fury, half-brother to WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and 8-0 as a pro (four KOs), has been doing similar.
“I definitely don’t think so,” he says. “Maybe once or twice, I’m sure they’ve watched my film. I don’t think as rigorously or broke me down like we do them, on a day-to-day basis.
“And I think they are over-confident. I really sense that from them. In their head it’s like, ‘This kid’s a YouTuber, we’ve been doing this our whole life; Tyson’s the champion of the world, so this is going to be an easy fight’.
“Him underestimating me will be the biggest mistake of his life.”
The stakes are surely high this Sunday, for both boxers. Tyson Fury has upped the ante somewhat, so confident that Tommy will knock out Paul that he declared, should he actually be defeated in Saudi, that he should relinquish the family name (the Furys come from a long line of prize-fighters).
Paul, of course, welcomes the ultimatum. Thus, he envisages the pressure getting to his opponent come fight night.
“It’s going to be really rough for him,” Paul says. “It’s going to be a wake-up call. It’s going to be a moment where he has to jump out of the bird’s nest and fly for himself. I don’t think he’s done that yet. I think he’s a boy, not a man.
“And this is going to instantly push him into manhood when he has to figure out all these new emotions and problems and things to deal with.”
Paul, who through a remarkable rise in the game has knocked out former UFC champions Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva, the latter last time out in October, questions the stock of the fighters Fury has faced.
He sees no way that any stack up against the threat he’ll pose in Diriyah.
“I don’t think he’s going to be able to do much of anything,” Paul says. “He’s going to be sharp for a couple of rounds for sure. He’s fast, he’s athletic, he’s tall, he’s lengthy, he’s strong. All of these things are great, but it’s nothing compared to who and what I am.”
Paul is the American social-media sensation with 47 million followers across YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, a self-confessed combat sports “disrupter” who has called out Dana White, Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather
A wrestler at high school, Paul plans to crossover into MMA; he is openly targeting next a fight with former UFC star Nate Diaz, even twice: once in the cage, the other in the ring.
Paul is vocal and fierce in his desire to become a boxing world champion. Last week, one of the sport’s four governing bodies, the WBC, confirmed it would place Paul in their rankings should he defeat Fury.
In the build-up to fight night billed as “The Truth”, the organisation released a special “Diriyah Champion belt” for the headline clash.
“I think I’m very close but very far at the same time,” Paul said of his path to world-champion status. “It’s all up to me. Mentally, I’m close and I’m there and I’m a world champion.
“Physically, the 10,000 hours of repetition has to catch up and that’s what will happen over the next three years moving into my athletic prime.
“And being able to fight for the 12 rounds. I’m already prepared for a 10-round fight in the state I am in now, but when you move up to the 12-round fights that’s for the big boys.
“I know I’m going to be there in the next couple of years physically. Mentally, I’m already a world champion.”
Paul’s conviction has been deepened somewhat by his month-long camp in Dubai. The commitment to the sport was evident there: his team that travelled number 15, among them trainer and assistant trainers well versed in the fight game, disciples of the renowned Kronk Gym in Detroit, a strength-and-conditioning coach, a “master healer”, and two sparring partners that can swap in and out. Patently, the hard yards have been put in.
“[Dubai] was awesome, man,” says Paul, who at times was swamped by children when out jogging around Palm Jumeirah, where he resided. “It felt like a Rocky movie moment.
“I was running around the track and all of a sudden 15 kids start running with me, they’re chasing me on scooters. It was very cool, very motivating.
“[Dubai] was crucial to get acclimated and get used to the different time zones on this side of the world. I was jet-lagged there for two-three weeks, and it was tough to get into the routine.
“But it prepared me immensely for this fight week and being here now and finally acclimated. So, it was definitely useful to be there ahead of time.
“It’s all the one per cent differences that add up to make a 10 per cent difference over the course of the fight.”
It could offer another advantage over Fury, who trained in the United Kingdom before flying to Saudi for fight week.
“This is a lot for him,” Paul says. “There‘s a bunch of interviews today, probably about 50. He’s not used to this, not used to fight week, having a real opponent, going face to face. All these things add up to make a big difference.”
Given Fury’s failure to show for the past two scheduled fights, Paul is surprised they’re now in Saudi, about to square off inside the ring at last.
“Definitely,” he says. “I didn’t know if he was ever going to step up to the plate and actually grow a pair to be able to get into the ring.
“But it’s cool and feels like all those other fight promotions weren’t for nothing. Because they carried over to this fight now and it’s an even bigger moment.”
Finally to face-off, to end the years-long verbal back-and-forth, Paul is clear-eyed when asked how it goes down in Diriyah.
“I’m going to knock him out,” he says, almost with a shrug. “He’s going to be unconscious, on the canvas, highlight reel, ‘KO of the Year contender’.
“And it’s only February. So I might have two more entries before the end of the year. But it’s going to be a show as always. Tune in. I’m excited.”
