Jake Paul's first outing in Mixed Martial Arts may have already been confirmed by his manager, Nakisa Bidarian.
After competing in boxing for several years, Paul surprised fans as he signed a multi-year, multi-fight to compete in MMA with the Professional Fighters League (PFL) in January 2023, taking an equity stake in the company.
Three years later, the influencer left the PFL following the expiration of his contract, despite the fact he never even made his MMA debut.
Since then, many fans assumed that Paul would never make the move from the boxing ring into an MMA octagon.
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However, following the announcement that Most Valuable Promotions, the promotion company established in 2021 by Paul and his adviser Bidarian, would be holding MMA fights, rumours of Paul finally fighting in the octagon have been circulating.
Former UFC champions Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano will headline MVP's first card on May 16, and following it, Bidarian has teased that Paul will soon call out former foe Nate Diaz for a fight on an MVP MMA event.
"It’s kind of funny, Nate Diaz called Jake out for MMA,” Bidarian told Bloody Elbow when asked for a status update on Paul’s injury.
“I know that Jake is going to come out and say ‘listen, beat Mike Perry and we can run it in MVP MMA, so we’ll see how that develops.”
Bidarian claimed that as long as Rousey v Carano performs as well as expected, it will be the first of many MVP MMA events in the near future, and should this be the case, Paul will of course be involved.
If Diaz and Paul were to meet in the octagon, it wouldn't be the first time that the pair fought each other after the influencer comfortably beat the former UFC star during a boxing match in 2023.
Despite this, the 40-year-old was one of the names linked with stepping in as a late replacement for Gervonta Davis when he pulled out of his fight with Paul at the end of last year, with Anthony Joshua ultimately taking the spot.
Although that would have been a boxing rematch, a second fight instead inside the cage has been discussed for several years.
“If you recall, Jake talked about doing MMA against Nate Diaz for a long time in PFL,” Bidarian added.
“The numbers just couldn’t work for Nate Diaz in terms of what he wanted and what PFL wanted to do. Maybe things change.”
And it appears that Diaz is absolutely game to make the fight happening, but in order to do so, he must first beat fellow ex-UFC star Mike Perry on the undercard of Rousey v Carano next month.
Speaking about a potential rematch with Paul during a recent appearance on Theo Von’s podcast, Diaz said: What do you think I’m doing here? I’m on the hunt.
“I’m gonna take his ass clean out. I’ve gotta fight Perry, get through that fight — which is a really big task at hand — and then we get the Paul fight."
Ben McCrum