Jake Paul claimed the biggest win of his boxing career last night when he emerged with a unanimous decision victory over aging UFC legend Anderson Silva.
The fight wasn’t a barnburner, but it was fairly competitive throughout, though the 26-year-old Paul enjoyed the biggest moment of the night when he dropped Silva with a right hand in the final round.
Silva got back up without issue and continued to take the fight to Paul, but he couldn’t dish out payback in the time left and Paul would go on to win unanimously on the scorecards (77-74, 78-73 x2).
The 47-year-old Silva had caused some controversy before the fight even began when he admitted during a pre-fight interview that he’d been knocked out twice during a training session for the fight, though he later claimed he misspoke and after reviewing the situation the boxing commission allowed the fight to proceed.
Still, that didn’t bode well for the veteran star, whose legendary run in the UFC had come to an end back in 2020 after years of decline had seen him win just once in nine fights, including suffering back-to-back TKO defeats in his final two Octagon outings, a far cry from his UFC heyday when he’d won 16 fights in a row and been the long-time middleweight champion.
However, Silva didn’t hang up his gloves for good after that and instead tried to make his mark in the boxing world, where he showed flashes of his old brilliance during a split decision victory over former boxing champ Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, followed by a KO finish against Tito Ortiz.
So Silva may be long since past his best as he moves towards 50-years-old, but this still remains Paul’s biggest win to date, and while there was a big age difference, it was the first time he’d actually fought someone his own size.
Paul is already looking to set up his next fight against another past-their-best MMA fighter, and this time it’s Nate Diaz who is in his sights.
The fight would tick many of the boxes for Paul as Diaz is a high profile MMA star, is smaller than him, having spent a large portion of his career at lightweight and never fought about 170lbs, and at 37 is no longer the fighter he once was.
Truth be told it’s a considerably easier fight for Paul than Silva in most areas, whether looking at size, skill or power, though while Diaz has also never had a professional boxing bout he has trained with pro-boxers at times throughout his MMA career.
