Jake Paul’s fight with Anderson Silva on Saturday is in at least potential jeopardy, as the Arizona Boxing & MMA Commission will meet this evening about the event, following remarks recently made by Silva that he’d been knocked out twice during training camp.
Steven Marrocco first reported the meeting on Thursday.
The 47-year-old Silva said in an interview that was released this week — but reportedly actually took place a month ago — that he’d been knocked out twice in sparring leading up to the fight, and the Arizona commission told ESPN’s Marc Raimondi that they will “review additional documentation submitted” by Silva
Silva has said he “misspoke” in the interview, noting that English is not his first language, and also that he was joking.
But a misspoken joke could threaten what is a major money event for himself, Paul, and Showtime Sports.
The most likely outcome, just at a wager, is that the fight will go on unless Silva — or Paul, for that matter — failed a medical examination from the commission. It would seem pretty hard to prove that he wasn’t simply joking or that he didn’t just use the wrong words. But it’s a situation where the commission have to at least review the issue officially, too.
If the fight does happen — and we’ll know by tonight if it’s going ahead or not, with the official weigh-in set for tomorrow morning — then we’ll be here with live, round-by-round coverage on Saturday, Oct. 29, starting from 9 pm ET.