Jake Paul believes knocking out Nate Diaz next month will be enough to convince Conor McGregor to finally agree to a super-fight between the pair.
The American social media sensation is 6-1 as a professional boxer, and has already defeated legendary UFC champions such as Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva. He has been calling for a crossover fight with McGregor for the better part of three years, but has received almost no response in that time.
McGregor has made brief replies to Paul on Twitter, but more recently refused to even mention his rival's name while discussing the bout - which he feels Diaz will win. However, the YouTuber believes he can earn the fight and the Irishman's attention, by stopping his opponent on August 5.
"When I knock out Nate Diaz I think that Conor McGregor is going to see me, want a pay day and come and get knocked out," Paul told talkSPORT Drive yesterday, before admitting that it could happen in either MMA or boxing. "We can fight in the PFL smart cage, whatever it is.
"I told everybody that I would fight Conor in any form of fight because he, in my opinion, is that shot. I'll do MMA, I'm not afraid to step in there. I've wanted to do that my whole career. I'm a wrestler, I've got a wrestling background, so all I'd have to learn is some jiu-jitsu and some kicks, which seems pretty easy to me."
Paul is an almost unbackable 1/3 favourite to beat Diaz at the bookies', with many fearing for the 38-year-old ex-UFC star after leaked footage showing him struggling on the pads emerged. McGregor has a famous feud with Diaz that has seen both men defeat each other, but he was unable to get a stoppage in his victory.
Former world title contender Esquiva Falcao has claimed Diaz is "overweight" ahead of the fight, having sparred with the UFC star in the lead-up to the Paul bout. “He is heavy now, he’s overweight," Falcao said of Diaz. "He must weigh about 220 pounds now or more.
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"So the only big guy here at the gym is me. So I ended up having to spar him. I enjoyed doing it though. I took it down a notch and we were just boxing. We ended up going for 12 rounds, even though he was tired. He was landing shots and eating a lot of shots too. It’s bad."
However, Diaz's teammate Chris Avila disputed that claim, telling The MMA Hour : "That guy got f***ed up. We were out in L.A. and we went to a boxing gym, this guy’s like a silver medalist out of Brazil, so Nate sparred this guy and did 12 rounds. He got f***ed up. He lost every round. Afterwards, he immediately goes to the coach, ‘Oh, I’m cutting weight, that’s why I didn’t look too good.'
"You see on his [ Instagram ] story it’s in Portuguese so we had somebody translate and he was talking s***. The next day we went back and the coach was like, ‘Yo, he wants to spar you.' So I sparred him, and then he lost every round again, and he still said goes and talks some more s*** in Portuguese but we didn’t know until after all the sparring. Anyways, f*** that guy."
