Jake Paul’s vapid boxing cosplay is a farce the sport could learn from

O n Saturday night, the odious LA-based vlogger Jake Paul won his third professional boxing match with a first-round knockout of Ben Askren, a retired UFC fighter with no previous boxing experience. Paul, who boasts more than 20m subscribers on YouTube, sent his opponent crashing to the deck in the opening minutes of their scheduled eight-round cruiserweight fight with a looping right hand before referee Brian Stutts waved it off, perhaps a bit prematurely, after the 2008 US Olympian beat the count.

“I deserved that shit,” the 24-year-old Paul said afterward. “This is the craziest moment of my life. I told y’all I was going to do it in the first round. I told y’all I’m a real fighter. I don’t know how many times I’ve got to prove myself this is for real.”

It’s easy to dismiss Paul v Askren as a joke, which it is: more highly polished cosplay than a genuine sporting experience between top-flight competitors. Paul’s three wins in as many outings have come against a fellow YouTuber, an ex-NBA player and the retired mixed martial artist on Saturday who looked like he’d trained for about 15 minutes, none of whom had ever boxed previously. He’s taking the least amount of risk possible and selling it for the highest price. This charade will be undressed the moment he steps into the ring with even a domestic-level opponent, though you get the sense that won’t be happening any time soon.

But there’s nothing funny about the attention generated by the event, which spent most of the night as the No 1 trending topic on Twitter and Instagram in the US and a number of other countries. Paul might be a hype job as credible as Santa Claus, but Saturday’s spectacle is newsworthy in the sports business space as the second pay-per-view