Jake Paul and Canelo Alvarez aren’t going to meet in the ring, but the two men spent a portion of Friday, February 7, trading verbal shots at each other.
Canelo told fans not to listen to the “f###### YouTuber,” but that ignited Paul, who spewed ether in a rant that appeared to at least be rooted in truth, even if some aspects of it weren’t accurate.
Here is the clip.
Let’s break down Paul’s points.
“Oh Canelo, you p*,”** Paul exclaimed. “So we had a signed contract to fight. Here, you can see Canelo’s signature and my signature to the right.”
You can see what appears to be a contract in the video. You have to wonder what we’re missing here because if there was a signed contract, does Paul have grounds for a breach of contract?
“Look at the poster—we were announcing Tuesday, February 11th,” Paul pointed out, showing the image of the poster.
“Claiming: ‘He fights real fighters,’ but he’s fighting Crawford, a 135-pound fighter, and running from a real fighter like David Benavidez, you b**.”**
False: Crawford is not a 135-pound fighter. He began his career at 135 pounds, but he last fought at 154 pounds and is now moving up to 168 pounds.
Truth: It does appear Canelo is avoiding a fight with the dangerous Benavidez.
“The truth is, you can be bought,” Paul said. “You’re a money-hungry squirrel chasing your next nut.”
In a sense, aren’t they all?
“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,” Paul charged.
It appears Canelo might have exercised some expert negotiation skills. He definitely seems to have learned from his experiences with Floyd Mayweather Jr. It’s unclear if Canelo ever intended to fight Paul, but he may have used Alalshikh’s willingness to outbid MVP to maximize his payday. If that’s the case, good on Canelo.
“Al Haymon has made you hundreds of millions of dollars, and you turned your back on him for this check—disloyal,” Paul said. “And you were begging to do this fight on pay-per-view, but I have loyalty—loyalty to Netflix doing the biggest numbers.”
No one appears to be very loyal in this sport.
“And you call me a YouTuber, but you’ve never had a boxing match as big as mine,” Paul said.
This is a tricky one because the only reason Paul vs. Mike Tyson would be bigger than Canelo-Crawford is if you’re measuring exposure, which leads to revenue. But Paul chastised Canelo for being “money-hungry.”
“Remember, you told my team that your daughter came home and asked if you were fighting Jake Paul,” Paul revealed. “She was all excited. You said that was the first time your daughter had ever asked you about a fight. And you’re screwing over all your Mexican fans by doing your fights in Saudi. It just shows what type of person you are. And I promise you one thing, Canelo: any fight that you do this year, mine will be bigger.”
Paul tried to cut deep here with references to the two entities that are likely most important to Canelo—his family and his people. Even if it rolls off Canelo’s back, it was a pretty solid bar in this rap battle of sorts.
“So go off to your boss, you Ring Magazine employee. You pink and orange b****. Oh, and fix that herpes on your lip.”**
Paul implies Canelo works for Ring Magazine because Alalshikh owns the publication, and he pointed out the raspberry on the Mexican’s bottom lip. That’s a bit of a high-school zing but still an emphatic punctuation to the response.
With all this drama, it wouldn’t shock me if these two still fought in 2026 or 2027 after the four-fight deal with Riyadh Season is done.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is boxing.
