Jake Paul: The problem child both saving and destroying combat sports.

Controversial YouTube and former Disney channel star Jake Paul have recently been on a teardown of professional boxing. By exposing one of the biggest and oldest problems in the history of prizefighting, he has managed to use the antics that made him famous on social media to become one of boxing's biggest draws.

Jake has generated millions through fights that should have minimal interest behind them. His last opponent, Ben Askren, had been retired for a few years, had hip surgery, and was known as a pure wrestler throughout his career despite being a world champion in multiple Mixed martial Arts organizations such as One Championship and Bellator. He had many opponents that were considered far too easy. Ben lost the 119-second bout via TKO, but he made $500,000 in one night, almost as much as his entire 3 Fight UFC career. Though these are memorable attraction celebrity fights, Jake Paul has been exposing one of the biggest problems in prizefighting, fighters not being paid their worth despite the risky nature of combat sports. This problem has existed for many years and recently led to soldiers like number 2 ranked UFC middleweight (185lbs) Paulo Costa not signing the contract for his scheduled fight against Jared Cannonier. He mentioned payment as his main issue. Specifically, he tweeted, "UFC needs to pay me as the main fighter to have fought in main events. Youtubers are showing all disgrace on this business." Costa probably should not be making demands about pay, but he has a point: very few fighters in combat sports are paid as much as they should be.

Fighters are considered independent contractors and negotiate base pay for taking the fight and gaining weight. Many factors contribute to this, but the main things are popularity and success in their recent Fights. for example, Nate Diaz got a $20,000 base salary in his fight against Michael Johnson; still, after his defeat of Connor McGregor, he was able to renegotiate for $250,000 as his base pay in his next fight against Anthony Pettis. Fighters can get bonuses based on performances, which is more common for soldiers with lower base pay and those who are champions. The famous fighters earn pay-per-view points. Which is a percentage of the money from pay-per-view buys directly; giving these points to more fighters would likely solve many payment issues within combat sports. But most soldiers do not generate anywhere near the interest of MMA stars like Khabib Nurmagomedov, Jon Jones, or "The Notorious" Connor McGregor.

Jon Jones is one of the biggest and most influential names in Mixed Martial Arts. Still, he has not been active in over a year as he is pursuing a move to the heavyweight division (weight limit of 265 lbs). As he was coming up from light heavyweight, he wanted to put on an adequate size for the division. Due to his standing in the UFC, he would immediately challenge for the belt. This made sense and was a widely respected decision; however, following UFC 261, where Francis Ngannou became heavyweight champion, Jones expressed interest through social media, and it was heavily suggested that he would get the next title shot. Surprisingly at the press conference following UFC 261, UFC president Dana White quickly shot down the idea and later stated that Jones was asking for $30 million despite being one of the fighters that get high base pay and pay-per-view points. As a result of these stalled debates, overpaying for the dream matchup between Jones and Ngannou is still just a dream.

You would think for a fight that has the potential to be the biggest fight in Mixed Martial Arts history and, at the very least, a guaranteed draw no matter the location; the UFC would pay both fighters handsomely as the return on investment is certainly going to be worth it. But by the UFC not giving in to the salary demands, they maintain the leverage that no fighter can ever be more significant than the company. This approach allows the UFC to set boundaries that generally keep negotiations in their favour; for example, replacing soldiers on short notice reinforces this ideology. It reminds the soldiers that they need the UFC more than the UFC needs them.

Jake Paul, in many ways, is the perfect treat to this oppressive ideology within prizefighting asHe is showing fighters who do not feel like they are being paid their worth another option. That can make them more money from one fight with generous sponsors backing the event, but it makes no sense on paper, as opposed to fighting the best competition the world has to offer and making nowhere close to fair compensation. In addition to his pre-existing internet fame, drawing power, and controversy, major professional fighting leagues and their executives have no choice but to take his YouTube/celebrity boxing brand seriously. Even if they do not want to admit it on a public forum because they risk losing fighters to these YouTube fights, which pay them more to fight lesser competition, or they must deal with Jake Paul's antics becoming more outlandish and increasing his publicity at the expense of these major fighting promotions.

Suppose he keeps going, and Jake Paul's fights continue to draw in millions of buys and more prominent sponsors. In that case, he could force the UFC, major boxing promotions, and even pro wrestling to increase the amount they pay their athletes significantly. This would be a massive change for the athletes but a more significant win for Jake Paul and the people he is involved with, as they would have beaten a system that exploits athletes and forced huge organizations to admit they were wrong in the harshest way possible. Losing profit and increasing wages could be seen as a Marxist's dream. By having the ruling class bourgeoisie, in this case, the prizefighting promotions lose power and increase benefits and pay for the working class, proletariat, in this case, the fighters to maintain the means of production, and an annoying YouTuber of all people would have sparked this revolution.

In summary, a controversial social media star might not be the person you want to spread awareness about the lack of fair compensation among prizefighters. Still, it was a long overdue movement and a shock to the system that changed the pay across all forms of fighting. If executed correctly.