You’ve probably already heard that Jake Paul canceled his scheduled Aug. 6 fight with Hasim Rahman Jr — and with it, the entire Showtime pay-per-view event at Madison Square Garden — with the claim that Rahman had not held up his end of contractual weight agreements.
In short, Rahman wasn’t passing weight checks, the fight had been bumped from 200 lbs to 205 lbs as a limit, and then, according to the Paul camp, Rahman wanted the limit to be 215, at which point they pulled the plug.
Rahman says that he did not pull out of the fight, though to be clear that’s not really what the Paul camp are saying, but Rahman put out a couple videos on his Twitter account to address the issue.
“Look, I’m a bridgerweight. I campaign at bridgerweight, or otherwise known as heavyweight outside of the WBC,” he began.
To be clear here, the WBC’s “bridgerweight” limit is 224 lbs. They are the only sanctioning body who recognize this division.
Rahman continued:
“I signed the contract to make 200 lbs within the three or three-and-a-half weeks that I had to do it, but I couldn’t do it. My body simply would not let me do it, would not let me get down to 200 lbs.
“But where in boxing do you see them canceling fights a whole week in advance? I didn’t even get my last week to get down as low as I could. I told this man, ‘If there’s penalties involved, keep the purse. Keep the purse. I’ll fight you for the $5,000 minimum.’ That’s how much it means to me and that’s how much faith I have in knocking him out. I would have beat this man with one hand just like I did in the gym.
“But let him tell it, he already beat my ass in the gym when I was 230. So if you beat me up while I was 230, what’s the problem in fighting me when I’m 215? What’s the problem fighting me at 210? It’s clearly them not wanting to fight. It’s not me pulling out of the fight, it’s them not wanting the fight.
