Jake Paul and Tommy Fury, the brother of heavyweight great Tyson Fury, will finally fight each other in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday. After two failed attempts at making the match, it is finally going down in the Middle Eastern country. At the final press conference in Saudia Arabia, Paul issued Fury a challenge that could benefit or harm Fury’s career. Paul said he would double Fury’s entire purse if he defeated him, and if not, Fury would receive no bag.
A foolhardy wager in a sport where a perfectly timed punch can separate you from consciousness, but it was accepted. Not by Tommy Fury, but by his father, John Fury.
Furious
“I think we make a deal then since you’re so confident,” Paul said at the final press conference on Friday in Saudi Arabia from the dais. “If you win, I’ll pay you double what I’m paying you already, but if I win, I take everything that I’m paying you. Deal or no deal?”
Paul stood up to shake Fury’s hand, and he jumped up on the other side of the stage to challenge him instead of answering the question. However, someone on his team responded for him, his father, John Fury.
“You’ve got a deal — all or nothing. You’ve got it.”
The two fighters approached and talked their trash while John Fury asked for the new agreement in writing.
“And you know what’s funny, Tommy, that your dad agreed to the deal before you. Your dad is more confident than you.”
Then the Fury patriarch dropped a bomb on the stage while sitting next to his son that could either motivate or decimate him.
“Can I say one thing and I’ll wrap this all up? If Jake Paul beats Tommy Fury, Tommy Fury don’t deserve being paid,” the elder Fury said with a cackle of a laugh.
“Amen,” Tommy Fury said afterward.
Pressurized
But that is where Tommy’s mental weakness is exposed. The pressure of being not only the half-brother of a man who dethroned Deontay Wilder and is arguably the top heavyweight in the world but also wearing a name that is supposed to instill fear in a boxing ring, Fury, is immense.
For Jake Paul, there has always been the thought that a “real” boxer would take away his hype train built on the KOs of ex-basketball players and ex-MMA champions. Now an actual boxer will test his mettle and is supposed to show the world that Paul is playing in the wrong playground.
But what if he doesn’t validate the boxer in this physical exchange?
Tommy Fury has all the pressure on him. From the diehard boxing world to his family, the Fury name is on the line for the sport’s purists to feel safe again. If Jake Paul is victorious or knocks Tommy Fury out, it is an immediate realization that the boxing business has been forever altered.
Interestingly, Fury is just as much a reality show persona as Paul is a YouTuber. He is more famous for being on the reality show “Love Island” in the U.K., but his last name means boxing. That is the truth of their fight, and the Arabian desert will host a showdown of a chosen boxing representative from the new energy that is tearing the perception of what a boxer is one fight at a time.
