Editor’s note: This article was originally published on MMAJunkie.com.
Hasim Rahman Jr. admits that he asked for more weight allowance, but to him, that isn’t the reason his boxing match with Jake Paul was canceled.
“My body simply would not let me do it,” Rahman Jr. said in an Instagram post hours after news broke that this Saturday’s entire event at Madison Square Garden was off. “It would not let me get down to 200 pounds, but where in boxing do you see them canceling fights a whole week in advance? I didn’t even get my last week to get down as low as I could. I told this man, ‘If penalties involved, keep the purse. Keep the purse. I’d fight you for the $5,000 minimum.’ That’s how much it means to me, and that’s how much faith I have in knocking him out.”
Rahman Jr. detailed his side of the story after Paul and Most Valuable Promotions went public with a press release and pair of videos that pointed at him as the reason for the cancellation. Rahman Jr. said while he asked for more weight allowance, Paul and his team set him up to fail – and then refused any sort of matchmaking supplementation.
Rahman Jr. finds this hypocritical. Paul touted in the pre-fight buildup that he handily beat up Rahman when the two trained together – a time when Rahman Jr. was approximately 230 pounds.
“Let him tell it, he already beat my ass in the gym when I was 230,” Rahman Jr. said. “So if you beat me up while I was 230, what’s the problem in fighting me while I’m 215. What’s the problem fighting me at 210? It’s clearly them not wanting to fight. It’s not me pulling out of the fight. It’s them not wanting the fight. I never said that I didn’t want this fight. The only thing that I can conclude is they’re scared. They tried to drag me down.”
According to Rahman Jr., his team even offered up a replacement to fight Paul on Saturday – someone who is more of a natural cruiserweight, Muhsin Cason. They were still denied.
“(He) could’ve saved the show,” Rahman Jr. said. “Jake Paul could’ve fought a real boxer, but he don’t want to fight a real fighter. He don’t want to fight a real fight. He wanted to drain me down and fight a shell of me, which I’m not going to allow him to do. Now, they didn’t move the goalposts and move the finish line closer and have me weigh in all these extra days early and then pull the plug on the fight like, ‘We don’t want to fight.’
“My team 100 percent still wanted to fight, still ready, willing, and able to knock out Jake Paul on Aug. 6. So y’all blame your boy Jake Paul for this fight not happening. It ain’t have nothing to do with me or my team. We let them know what the real reason was, and Jake Paul is scared to fight.”
Check out Rahman Jr.’s full statement below:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgqaYO3l0s-/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=b0ce9c5c-035e-4a60-9bb2-86aaad15baea