- Jake Paul has opened as the -260 favorite to beat Nate Diaz in a boxing match.
- Paul and Diaz are booked to fight in an 8-round bout on August 5, 2023, at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas.
- Diaz, who fought out his contract with the UFC and became a free agent last September, is listed as the +200 betting underdog.
Jake Paul and Nate Diaz have officially agreed to a boxing match on August 5at the American Airlines Arena in Dallas, Texas. The bout will be scheduled for 8 rounds and contested at a weight limit of 185 pounds.
ESPN’s Marc Raimondi was the first to break the news about the fight, but it has since been confirmed by Paul, Diaz, and sports streaming service provider DAZN which will broadcast the event.
Jake Paul Opens as Favorite
According to online sportsbook BetOnline, the former YouTube star is the -260 favorite to beat the ex-UFC fighter, who came back at +200 odds. This isn’t the first time that the odds between the two have opened at the top boxing and UFC betting sites.
In June 2022, BetOnline first tweeted the odds for a possible Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz bout, although it wasn’t specified as to what discipline they would fight.
Back then, the odds were -250 for Diaz and +200 for Paul. A couple of weeks after Nate’s final UFC bout in September 2022, SportsBetting.ag opened the betting lines for Diaz’s possible next opponent. At the top of that list was Jake Paul at +140 odds followed by his brother Logan at +400.
Nate Diaz opens as the 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗱𝗼𝗴 in his boxing match with Jake Paul 👀
(odds via @betonline_ag) 🥊 #PaulDiaz pic.twitter.com/TE0YVnhd4Z
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) April 12, 2023
Last October, the betting lines resurfaced after Diaz “attacked” a member of Paul’s entourage backstage during the latter’s bout with Anderson Silva. After that incident, BetOnline opened the odds for a boxing bout between the two at -260 for Jake and +200 for Nate.
Then, at the start of 2023, Jake Paul signed a multi-fight and multi-year deal with the Professional Fighters League (PFL). But the contract wasn’t to participate in the PFL’s regular tournament. Instead, it was to compete under the organization’s super fight division.
During that time, Jake announced that he offered Nate Diaz a two-fight deal, one in MMA and one in boxing. Once again, the betting lines between the two went live.
BetOnline’s Dave Mason tweeted that Paul was the -300 favorite and Diaz the +240 underdog in a boxing match. A few months later, Mason added that Diaz would be the -1000 chalk and Paul the +550 underdog in an MMA contest.
Jake Looking to Rebound from Tommy Fury Loss
Jake Paul will try to rebound from the first setback of his young professional boxing career. The Problem Child was beaten on points by long-time rival Tommy Fury when the two finally fought inside the boxing ring on February 6, 2023, in Saudi Arabia.
Fury had the clear advantage over Paul in total punches landed (88-49) during the 8-round boxing match. Tyson Fury’s younger half-brother also out-pointed Paul in every round of the fight, while doubling up on power punches landed at 49-24.
At the end of the contest, one judge scored the bout 75-74 for Paul and the two other judges scored it 76-73 for Fury. The split-decision loss was the first defeat in Jake Paul’s young professional boxing career and it derailed the hype that he methodically built since arriving on the combat sports scene in 2018.
Paul made the following comments about taking the Diaz fight:
“My last fight didn’t end the way I wanted, but the result was the best thing that could have happened to my professional boxing aspirations. Now, the world thinks I am vulnerable when all I am is more focused than ever. My team wanted me to take an easy fight like KSI next, but that’s not how I am built. Nate Diaz is considered one of the most bad-ass fighters of all time, but he and his team have been running their mouths for too long.”
Paul made his professional boxing debut on January 30, 2020, when he defeated fellow YouTube star AnEsonGib in a bout where he opened as the even-money underdog.
Following his debut, he fought retired athletes (a basketball player and three MMA fighters) in boxing matches who were all naturally smaller than him. It was no surprise that Paul won all four of those matchups. He passed his first ‘test’ when he beat Anderson Silva last October, but the Spider was already 47 years old.
After beating Silva, Paul had the guts to call out Canelo Alvarez while also taking a shot at Nate Diaz. Before the Fury bout, he talked about becoming a boxing world champion in the next two or three years.
The WBC even said that Jake Paul would enter their cruiserweight rankings if he beat Fury. Unfortunately, reality kicked in and Paul was beaten by the first real boxer he faced.
The official trailer for Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz dropped pic.twitter.com/5lIyFSrxON
— Bloody Elbow (@BloodyElbow) April 12, 2023
Nate Diaz’s pro boxing debut
Nate Diaz fits the bill for Jake Paul’s go-to opponent. Nathan is already 37 years old and is jobless. While he was one of the most popular fighters in the UFC up until his final bout, he was just 8-8 in his last 16 MMA bouts.
As far as betting odds are concerned, Diaz was a perennial betting underdog in the UFC. Since 2013, the only fight where he closed as the favorite was April 20, 2013, when he was listed at -145 against Josh Thompson at UFC on FOX 7. He lost that fight via 2nd round TKO.
Diaz said in a press release:
“Besides ‘Canelo’ [Alvarez] he’s the biggest thang in boxing. I’m here to conquer that. I’m the king of combat sports and then I’m headed back to get my UFC belts. I f***** up Conor for acting out and now here I am again, like a Super Hero of the Real Fight game, the King of the Real Fight game.”
The winner of The Ultimate Fighter 5 lightweight tournament in 2007, Diaz ranks third all-time in the UFC for post-fight Performance Bonuses and is 4th all-time in submission wins.
He owns victories over the likes of Melvin Guillard, Donald Cerrone, Anthony Pettis, Tony Ferguson, and Conor McGregor. However, all of those victories were inside the UFC cage, not a boxing ring.
However, Diaz is considered one of the best strikers to ever set foot in the UFC. He and his brother Nick used to train in boxing with world-class fighters, including the undefeated boxing great Andre Ward.
Ward once said that the Diaz brothers would do well if they took boxing seriously as a career and that Nate was tough to spar against.
Unfortunately, sparring and fighting in a real fight are two different animals. And, while Nate has sparred with some of the best boxers in the game, Jake Paul has been a ‘professional boxer’ since 2020. Regardless of who he fought for the majority of his boxing ‘career’, he is a trained boxer.
