Anna Good
Conor McGregor tried to pick a fight with Jake Paul on Twitter, but Paul wasn’t taking any of the fighter’s crap and shot right back.
McGregor and Paul have been throwing internet punches at each other for the last year or so ever since the YouTuber took to the ring. While Paul is certainly a novice fighter, his pro boxing career thus far sports four knockouts and he is five for five in a winning streak.
That being said, most of his fights have been easy: another content creator, MMA fighters who were past their prime, and a retired sportsman, but it looks like things are going to change now and he’s getting lined up to fight actual boxers in the ring.
That didn’t stop the former two-weight UFC champion from calling Paul a “nobody” on Twitter this past Monday, however.
The 33-year-old McGregor was responding to an MMA Fighting interview with Paul where the newbie fighter said that a fight against McGregor would be inevitable and bring them both a nine-figure windfall.
The Irishman was not about it, though, and made up a stat about Paul’s pay-per-view fights, saying, “You’ve two fights and done 70k buys.”
The resulting backlash from Paul was of course to be expected, and he responded with a long-form video rant in retaliation to McGregor’s tweets.
It’s not the first time Paul’s picked a fight with other athletes online and it certainly won’t be the last, if his track record is anything to go by.
The 25-year-old posted the two-minute rant that he filmed in what looks to be a private jet, and the video is filled with expletives.
“Conor, Conor, Conor: you’re more active on Twitter than you are in the Octagon,” he said at the start of the video.
He went on to baselessly accuse McGregor of taking the performance-enhancing drug Trenbolone along with many other statements without any proof to back them up, including cheating on his partner and being an alcoholic.
“You haven’t won a fight in five f-cking years, and the last time you did was against ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone, who hasn’t won a fight against anyone since fighting you,” Paul said. “I’m a nobody, you say in this tweet. Well, yeah, you’re right. I’m just a kid from Ohio. I really am a nobody. But this is where you fought in your sixth fight, there’s literally two people in the crowd, and this is where I’m going to be fighting my sixth fight — Madison Square Garden.”
Paul then posted side-by-side photos of McGregor’s early fights versus his own.
“Here’s another fun fact,” Paul went on. “In your 18th pro fight you made $150,000. In my fifth fight, I made $15 million.”
The YouTuber continued, listing off his successes at the box office and claiming that he shared “millions of dollars with underpaid fighters.”
“You shouldn’t have f-cked with me, Conor,” he said. “This is my game, and there’s a new king in town. I’m running sh-t now. If we went net worth for net worth, I would sh-t on you. Put the bottle down, get off of Twitter, get back in the ring. And shut the f-ck up. F-ck you, Conor.”