Tensions between Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley’s ahead of their boxing match on Sunday night have ramped up after a scuffle broke out following the pre-fight press conference.
While it’s not clear exactly what was said to spark off the trouble, it appears that someone from Paul’s camp had exchanged words with Woodley’s mother, which left the former UFC star fuming and his sister intervening to give the man a piece of her mind.
Things quickly escalated from there as other members of both camps got involved in a tense stand-off, while Woodley angrily demanded an apology.
The situation then calmed down enough that it didn’t break out into an all-out brawl, and Woodley explained what had happened from his perspective.
“I’m looking, trying to do the faceoff, and I hear him going back and forth with my mom,” Woodley told reporters afterwards. “Anytime it’s going back and forth, that’s unacceptable. I don’t care who you are, what nationality you are, that’s unacceptable. So I said, ‘Is you f*cking talking to my mom now?’
“Then I hear Jake say something, ‘Yeah, he’s talking to your mom.’ He don’t know no better. He don’t understand this lifestyle. I’ll shake this whole f*cking room in a way you ain’t never seen. F*ck the UFC sh*t, f*ck the knockout sh*t, I will start f*cking hurting people, and you’ll see orange droppin, hitting the floor.
“What you’re not gonna do is talk to my mother in any type of way. I don’t give a f*ck if you’re a whole op, if you killed my friend, I’m never gonna speak on nobody’s mom.”
Nevertheless, Woodley went on to insist that the scuffle won’t affect how he fights as he was already gunning to KO Paul anyway.
“I’m relaxed,” Woodley said. “There’s nothing they can do or say to make me perform any higher to provide any more violence. I was already at the max level. I was going 100 regardless. It’s nothing they can do to make me like, ‘Now I really gotta go because he said something about my mom!’
“I was already there. I was already in kill mode.”
Meanwhile, Jake Paul admitted that he wasn’t comfortable with how things had played out, though video footage from when the incident first occurred appeared to suggest otherwise.
“Of course (I didn’t want it to happen),” Paul told MMA Junkie afterwards. “This is Women’s Equality Day. If it was literally anything else, I’m just sitting there talking about how much I love my mom, how much I love my girlfriend, and of course, there has to be an altercation involving females. It sucks. Just everything about it just looks messy. We’re trying to have a professional event here, and now things are more personal. Probably going to need more security at all these places. Things just aren’t cordial anymore. Tensions will definitely be higher going into this fight.”
And despite acknowledging that his team hadn’t handled themselves well, Paul believes that the same accusation could be levelled at Woodley’s, and so it’s only increased the rivalry he feels towards the UFC star.
“I think it’s more personal for me too,” Paul said. “Just seeing his team act the way they did. He probably is sitting there saying the same thing. He wants to get all gangster. But they were also being super disrespectful. My team is being professional. Were they in the wrong? Yeah. But they’re never just going to come out of pocket and just act up like that. There had to have been something that built up, then it explodes. Everything is more personal, and I’ll make him and his team pay for that.”
And though Woodley had called for an immediate apology for what went down, Paul insisted that they are not sorry for what happened.
“Hell no – we’re not sorry,” Paul said. “We’re not sorry at all. Should we not have done it? Maybe. But we’re not sorry.”
Watch video of the scuffle filmed by MMAJunkie below.
