Jake Paul didn’t leave it in the hands of the judges in his boxing rematch with Tyron Woodley last night, knocking out the 39-year-old former UFC fighter cold in the sixth round to claim the biggest highlight-reel win of his career to date.
For much of the contest, which saw Woodley come in on two week’s notice after Tommy Fury pulled out injured, the fight had threatened to underwhelm and the crowd increasingly voiced their disapproval at the relative lack of action.
The biggest moments being when an accidental clash of heads in the third round left Paul with a significant cut to the forehead, and a brief scuffle in the fourth in which Woodley seemed to momentarily forget that he was in a boxing match as he went for a takedown to bundle his rival to the mat.
Paul was edging the little action that there was up until the sixth round when he suddenly found a home for his trademark overhand right to devastating effect, sending Woodley crashing face first onto the canvas for a brutal KO victory.
Credit where it’s due, there’s no doubting Paul has real power in his hands and it was a picture-perfect knockout and only the second time that Woodley has been knocked out cold in his combat sports career.
However, post-fight Paul continued to focus on calling out MMA fighters like Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal, who were both ringside for the fight. Both UFC stars would likely be up for that challenge and are naturally more boxing-orientated than Woodley, but if either bout was to ever happen it would again be a case of Paul fighting against undersized opposition since they both are former lightweight’s who now compete at welterweight, while he himself is in the region of middleweight and light-heavyweight.
As for Woodley, the same failure to pull the trigger that saw him slump out of the UFC following a four-fight losing streak earlier this year was again evident for the second time in his two-fight boxing series with Paul, so even if it hadn’t been for the KO this was still was a bout that didn’t appear to be going his way.
