Sean O’Malley: ‘I don’t know if Nate takes that fight’ with Jake Paul
Does Nate Diaz really want to fight Jake Paul?
Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz might be the fight to make, but does Nate Diaz actually want it?
Sean O’Malley questioned whether Diaz, winner of The Ultimate Fighter 13, actually wants to fight Paul after how impressive ‘The Problem Child’ looked in his Oct. 29 boxing victory over Anderson Silva.
‘Suga’ thinks it’s the biggest fight available for both fighters right now but suggests Diaz reconsider his options due to it being a potential mismatch in Paul’s favor.
“He impressed me, Jake impressed me,” O’Malley said during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour (h/t MMA Fighting). “I thought the later the fight went on, I thought Anderson might kind of put it on him, if it continued to go into the later rounds. But I think it just goes to show how good of shape Jake was in, how serious he took the fight camp, how serious he takes the sport.
“He was throwing good combos on the inside, he was going to the body nice, he was doing a lot of things right. And I was very impressed with Jake.”
He continued: “I always want to see the biggest fights. Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz is the biggest fight. That’s what I would like to see. Jake, I think, wants to be taken more seriously by fighting a real boxer boxer and go after a belt. But I think I’m like, you might as well fight Nate Diaz. And I don’t know if Nate takes that fight. Nate might’ve seen — you know, Jake looked good. It’s not like Nate probably looked at him and thought, ‘Well, I’ll go in there and just whoop him.’ So that might be a fight that Nate doesn’t even really take.
“I don’t know if Jake beats Nate — what he showed versus Anderson, I would say that there’s a very good chance. So I think it would be an epic fight.”
Paul has vowed to settle his differences with Diaz in the ring after the latter started a backstage brawl with Team Paul last month and alleged Jake’s win over Silva was rigged due to ‘The Spider’ being on the ‘payroll’.