After watching Alex Pereira finish Khalil Rountree, Jake Paul is even more confident that he could beat him in boxing.
Paul called out light heavyweight champion Pereira for a boxing match after he scored a TKO finish of Mike Perry in July. “Poatan” responded and was game for a fight.
Pereira is fresh off a violent Round 4 TKO of Rountree to retain his light heavyweight title in Saturday’s UFC 307 headliner. He lost the first two rounds, before finding his groove and battering Rountree.
Paul thinks Rountree exposed Pereira in that fight.
”One thousand percent I would beat him,” Paul told Adin Ross on boxing Pereira. “That’s the thing is, Rountree actually kind of exposed that he doesn’t have a high volume output. He doesn’t like body shots. In MMA, Pereira would rip my head off. But boxing is a completely different sport, and the pace of it, and the style of it.”
Paul (10-1) takes on 58-year-old boxing legend Mike Tyson (50-6-2) on Nov. 15 at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. With Pereira currently under UFC contract, a fight with Paul is highly unlikely.
”He has holes,” Paul said. “I mean, Rountree rocked him, hurt him a couple of times to the body, but didn’t follow up on it. So if anything, this fight showed me, yes, Alex Pereira is great. But I know I would beat him in a boxing match, and I still would love to make that happen. Pressure is on him. If he can find his way out of the UFC contract like Nate Diaz did, then eventually him and I can talk.”
Pereira, a former two-weight division Glory Kickboxing champion, boxed once professionally – a TKO win over Marcelo de Souza Cruz 2017 in Brazil.
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