JAKE PAUL TAKES NEXT STEP IN BOXING JOURNEY WITH FURY FIGHT

By STEVE DOUGLAS AP Sports Writer

JAKE Paul’s unorthodox career in boxing might just be about to get serious.

The YouTube influencerturned-prize fighter will be coming up against a recognised professional boxer for the first time Sunday when he takes on Tommy Fury, the half-brother of world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. Since venturing into boxing in 2018, Paul has fought a fellow influencer, a former NBA basketball player and three MMA fighters. He has won each time, building up his already-sturdy brand in the process. Fighting Fury is widely regarded as a step up and the WBC, which is sanctioning the fight, recognises it. Indeed, if the 26-year-old Paul — a blond, bearded social-media phenomenon — wins, he will be granted a place in the WBC’s world rankings at cruiserweight.

“Jake has dedication and respect to the sport,” the sanctioning body said, “and the WBC will not tolerate discrimination against anyone. He deserves the opportunities that any other boxer has.”

It’s hardly a move that will be popular with boxing traditionalists.

Then again, Paul is not exactly operating in those circles or attempting to please that demographic. He has forged a very different path into the boxing world and is making a success of it, given the fight against Fury has gotten pay-per-view status and is deemed big enough to be hosted for big money out in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.Paul, who rose to fame by posting Vine videos and as an actor on Disney Channel show Bizaardvark, joined the pro boxing ranks in 2019 and said he is “as serious as it gets” about the sport. He says he has a 30-person team supporting his training, which is largely done at the Cleveland native’s base in Puerto Rico.

“Because my life’s on the line,” he told British newspaper The Independent ahead of the Fury fight, “so I’m not going to take that lightly.”

Becoming a world champion boxer is his ultimate aim, even if that goal appeared even more remote with the news in January that Paul has signed a deal with the Professional Fighters League in mixed martial arts. Certainly Fury doesn’t take his opponent seriously as a boxer. “That’s like saying a pig is going to fly, isn’t it?” Fury said of Paul’s ambitions of becoming a world titleholder. “I’m going to teach Jake Paul a lesson … I’m going to show him he can’t just pick up a pair of gloves and say, ‘I’m going to be a world champion.’” Fury has an interesting back-story, too, and not just because he is the halfbrother of one of the most famous boxers in the world and comes from a family of bare-knuckle fighters.

The fight was initially scheduled for December 2021 but Fury had to pull out because of illness and injury.

And then again for August 2022 only for Fury to again withdraw because of travel issues going into the United States.

The WFRK said the positive test would not lead to Son being stripped of his Olympic medal.

“This out-of-competition testing was undertaken after six months following the international competitions where (the athletes) had taken part, so there is no issue of disqualifying their results or returning their medals. I especially want to emphasize this in relation to the Olympic award of Igor Son,” WFRK general secretary Aldiyar Nuralinov said in a statement.

Kazakhstan has a long history of doping in elitelevel weightlifting. The Central Asian nation has been stripped of medals from the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics for various breaches of anti-doping rules.

National teams can lose future Olympic places if they have repeated doping cases — a sanction which has applied to Kazakhstan in the past — or be barred from competitions.

Nuralinov said that would not happen in this case because Son and the other athletes tested positive in national-level tests within Kazakhstan and not at international events.