Jorge Masvidal believes Jake Paul and his team may have made a critical error picking a fight against Tyron Woodley.
The YouTube star hopes to move to 4-0 in his professional boxing career against the former UFC welterweight champion on August 29 in Cleveland, Ohio.
Although Woodley has never boxed professionally before, ‘The Chosen One’ has a tremendous right hand and has detonated it to great effect on some of the very best in the UFC.
Despite losing four of his last fights in the UFC, the 38-year-old is still a tremendous athlete and has fought for the entirety of his life – in sanctioned bouts or otherwise.
While Paul may have arrived late to the sport of boxing, he has dedicated a tremendous amount of time and effort to training and knocked out Masvidal’s former foe Ben Askren in devastating fashion.
Yet ‘Gamebred’ insists Woodley is a different beast and Paul may have underestimated his next opponent.
“Jake’s going to go and fight Woodley now and man, Woodley is a hell of an athlete,” Masvidal said on ‘Entourage’ star Jeremy Piven’s podcast How U Livin’ J Piven.
“He’s training man, he’s in shape and I like Jake, I’ve met him a couple of times but Woodley is like my brother we’ve trained together for 13, 14 years beating the crap out of each other.
“We’ve exchanged information and he’s helped me out with a lot of situations other than just training and stuff so I know this guy in and out in the gym.
“I give a lot of props to Jake, man, he’s got a very good team behind him and they’re going outside of their comfort zone for sure picking Woodley.
“I’m sure they’re positive they think they’re going to win, but if I were Jake’s manager I wouldn’t have picked that fight I would have said ‘let’s work our way there, or stay away from this guy as long as we can’.
“That’s a guy who is really coming to fight and who can crack.”
Woodley initially trained as a wrestler in his formative years, but has developed his striking to a succinct level throughout his career.
Before this fight, he even trained with Floyd Mayweather Jr (who infamously had his hat stolen by Paul) and Masvidal believes the ‘explosive power’ he possesses could be the difference maker.
“They have to be, that’s the only way that you could be led to believe they picked Woodley,” Masvidal said when asked if Paul’s team had taken Woodley as an opponent due to his recent record.
“They must think like he’s a shell of himself now and this shell we can beat, that’s the only thing that I’m thinking because obviously they know Woodley in his prime they could never take him on.
“It’s not to diss either side but this is not what Jake has done his whole life, Woodley’s wrestled since he was seven or eight years old he’s been in some form of combat his whole life it’s all he knows.
“He has extreme, explosive power.”