Editor’s note: This article was originally published on DAZN.com.
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YouTube celebrity Jake Paul was taken aback by Floyd Mayweather attacking him on social media and suggesting they should fight one another in 2021.
Mayweather was due to fight Paul’s older brother, Logan Paul, on Feb. 20, but the date has been pushed back indefinitely for unspecified reasons. The Hall of Famer said subsequently that he plans to take part in multiple exhibitions this year.
Jake Paul is scheduled to face MMA fighter Ben Askren in a sanctioned bout on April 17. He wants nothing to do with exhibitions.
“I’m 2-0 with 2 KOs [in] pro fights,” he told TMZ. “If Floyd wants to do these exhibitions, ya know … cool. But I’m a real fighter. He has to take me seriously, and I think the reason he wants to do these exhibitions is because he’s afraid to risk his legacy of his 50-0 record in case he were to lose.
“… I’m not doing the exhibition s—. It doesn’t interest me. Those are like fake patty-cake fights.”
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He then suggested the 43-year-old fighter was feeling mental strain given his social media antics.
“This guy is out of his mind,” Paul said. “He just calls me out, out of nowhere. Same with 50 Cent! I mean, he hasn’t even fought my brother yet. It just seems like he’s losing his marbles … like, what the f— is this guy doing?!
“It just seems like this guy is money hungry. It seems like he hasn’t paid his taxes or some s—, and he just wants to fight everyone.”
Mayweather was last in the ring in December 2018, when he knocked out on Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa in an exhibition.