Jake Paul’s pay-per-view appeal against the ropes after loss to Tommy Fury

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports. For more information about CBC’s Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

First, let’s squash any lingering confusion:

Jake Paul is a real boxer.

Period.

This isn’t a title boxing writers and other sweet science lifers bestowed upon Paul because he showed heart in dropping an eight-round decision to Tommy Fury, in the main event of a pay-per-view card in Saudi Arabia last Sunday. That bout, objectively, was not close. Fury, a reality TV star from a boxing family, outclassed Paul, a social media celebrity who now boxes. He landed more often, with more authority, while Paul struggled to adjust to Fury’s length, and the tempo he set.

If anything, Sunday night’s loss highlighted the limitations in Paul’s skill set and business model.

In the immediate term, he’s fine. Paul grossed a reported $30 million US to receive that boxing lesson from Fury, the younger half-brother of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.

The question was never whether the 26-year-old Paul was a legitimate boxer. He has coaches, training partners and a full-time training schedule. Several times a year he signs up to trade punches in public, wearing 10-ounce gloves and no headgear. Anybody who does that stuff is a real boxer, and doesn’t need to win a world title to prove it to the rest of us.

But what does Sunday’s humbling loss say about Paul, the public, and the media who helped turn his otherwise run-of-the-mill fights into major events? What happens now that the question at the crux of Paul’s appeal — whether he can actually beat a full-time boxer — has been answered? How does a 6-1 cruiserweight who lost the first time he, as boxing people say, stepped up in class, rebuild the expectations that have attracted so many eyeballs and dollars so far? Stoking interest in a rematch might be the toughest test Jake Paul the salesman has ever faced.

As for the expectations — they’ll undergo a reset, which is a tribute to the power of Paul’s self-promotion.

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Major fight treatment

If you ignore the action in the ring, a Jake Paul main event looks just like the super fights we’re used to.

Like a sold-out venue with stars down front, where cameras can find them. Celebrities in the crowd on Sunday included comedian Kevin Hart, boxing Hall of Famer Mike Tyson, and soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

Or a fairly meaningful co-feature. Before Paul and Fury faced off, Badou Jack knocked out Junior Makuba to win a world title in a 12-round cruiserweight slugfest.

And broadcast partners. Services like DAZN and ESPN, streaming the bouts to your preferred device. Traditional cable operators beaming it to your TV for a $49.99 pay-per-view fee.

Before the fight, ESPN splashed Paul-Fury stories across the main page of its main site — the most popular…