Spike O’Sullivan: Jake Paul has a chance to prove he’s not a bluffer
FACE OFF: US boxers Jake Paul (L) and Tommy Fury (R) face off during a press conference in Riyadh ahead of their February 26 boxing match. Pic: Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images
How do I like my eggs in the morning? Complimentary, as it happens.
Like Conor Benn, apparently, I’m awful fond of an omelette and have one nearly every day. My go-to for years now is a smoked salmon, feta cheese and spinach four-egg omelette. You might know this if you happen to frequent one of my favourite breakfast places in Cork.
CoMix Cafe on the Kinsale Road there just past Musgrave Park is a class Polish-Irish spot run by an absolute gent called Tomasz. A few years ago I’d been requesting my custom omelette so often he asked if he could throw it on the menu as the Spike O’Sullivan Special with a wee cartoon of my face. In exchange, he’d give me a complimentary one whenever I fancied. As good a deal as I’ve been offered in my career.
Poor Tomasz is lucky I didn’t eat him out of house and home — I reckon I eat about 28 eggs a week, easily. Until this week I was fairly confident that that would rank me as boxing’s pound-for-pound egg king. Turns out Conor Benn has me beaten. Scrambled, poached and fried too.
After an in-depth investigation (of Benn’s fridge maybe?), the World Boxing Council have cleared him of the drugs test he failed last year ahead of his fight with Chris Eubank Jr. The WBC said the positive result was because of a “highly-elevated consumption of eggs.” I’ve been decimating chicken farms for a solid 20 years now and never failed a test. Should I be suddenly walking on eggshells? Is it really worth the whisk?
There’s plenty of better jokes and memes out there. Twitter has been having a field day with the news for the past few days but there is a serious point here too, particularly in this week of all weeks. There’s a certain group of people who spend every Jake Paul fight week crying that YouTubers are dragging boxing down, are making the sport a punchline. This craic, or should I say crack, with Benn and the WBC proves that boxing does a good job of that all on its own.
I really don’t have a major problem with Jake Paul. Our sport is full of lads who have made a career for themselves with their mouth as much as their hands. He clearly pissed off a lot of people before he ever got serious with boxing. Anyone whose Wikipedia page is 70% ‘Controversies and Legal Issues’ has run into plenty of problems. A lot of those same people are hoping Paul runs into another in Saudi Arabia on Sunday when he faces Tommy Fury in eight rounds at cruiserweight.
It’s a pay-per-view bout that has a whole lot of non-boxing people talking but boxing people are talking too. Paul is due to earn upwards of $8 million and Fury almost $5 million. It’s more money than 98 per cent of boxers will earn in their entire careers. Why the big interest? A lot of it is down to the one issue that I do have with Paul: he has yet to prove that he isn’t just another bluffer. Sunday gives him the chance to answer that.
Paul’s professional record reads as 6-0 but to this point he has either fought lads half his size or twice his age and none of them were boxers. This time it’s different. Paul is fighting someone who is more the just the first cousin of a boxer — he’s a brother of the best boxer on the planet. Tommy Fury isn’t Tyson but he knows what it takes to win a fight. He’s won eight of them himself, even if a lot of his time has been spent in the reality TV world. He’s surely the realest boxer Paul has met yet.
Here are two truths about boxing and they’re both true at the same time: A) it’s not rocket science but B) you can’t bluff it. I’ve run into enough lads in the street or the pub who spout some oul nonsense like ‘I reckon I could go a round or two’. Listen to me, one quick stroll into the backstage bathroom at a white collar boxing night would tell you all you need to know about how the reality of the sport, even at that pure amateur level, dawns on lads and their digestive systems.
I’ve read that Paul has a training and support staff of over 30 people and I’d believe it. He has the money to fund it and clearly has a serious work ethic too. More importantly he seems to have the guts to put himself in there and that’s a huge part of the battle.
So how will it go? Well, there’s some expert insight walking the streets of Cork and I’ve managed to get the lowdown. Cathal Crowley, who’s just a stone’s throw from me here in Togher, is one to watch and won his pro debut in November. He was over in England sparring Fury in the last few weeks and was pleasantly surprised by what he saw. Put it this way: he’s not among those expecting another Paul KO.
I’m still torn on it. Whether here in my column or on Twitter, I’ve called a lot of tight fights in the past year but I’ve been surprised how torn I’ve been on this one: an eight-rounder involving two lads who between them have 14 total career fights and maybe only a handful of them worth putting stock in.
I like to keep my word though and last month, when running through some bold predictions for 2023, I predicted that Paul would win and if that transpired then one of the sanctioning organisations would give him a ranking. I’ve already been proven half right because the WBC have indeed confirmed they’ll give Paul a ranking if he beats Fury. The merits of that are a whole other debate but maybe we’ve given the WBC enough of a shoeing for today.
For now I’ll stick to my guns and predict that Paul does go and prove that he is no bluffer. Maybe I’ll end up with egg on my face but Conor Benn and his lawyers might be able to help me with that.
Last March, an hour or so after he’d knocked Michael Conlan not just out but clean out of the ring in Nottingham, Leigh Wood stopped me at a post-fight function and asked for a photograph. Given what he’d just done, it should have been me asking him for something to remember the night by.
My own phone was dead at the time, so I never got a photo for myself. I must reach out to Leigh and ask him to send on the one he has because A) I’d love to have it and B) Leigh is going to have some downtime for a wee while now.
Last weekend back at the same arena in his home town, Wood lost his WBA featherweight title when he was hit with an absolute bomb by Mauricio Lara. The Mexican and Wood had given us the guts of seven rounds of absolutely brilliant boxing. What a scrap. It was on its way to being a fight of the year until Lara unloaded.
When Wood staggered to his feet, there were only 10 seconds to the bell but his trainer Ben Davison threw in the towel. Davison saw Lara charging in behind the ref, ready to finish his fighter and made a brave decision. It was the right one too. I tweeted right afterwards that Davison’s call meant Wood went home to see his family that night and I want to commend him again.
But once Leigh is rested and cleared to get back in there, I want to see him and Lara pick up right where they left off. The rematch, hopefully later in the year, will be can’t-miss stuff.
