Jake Paul and Stephen A. Smith are going to be guests on Friday night’s edition of Game Theory with Bomani Jones on HBO, and the network released a brief clip of Jones’ interview with Paul.
Jones asked Paul what happens if he loses one of his fights, and Paul did not respond favorably to the question.
Here’s the transcript of the clip.
Jones: After Tommy Fury, where do you go from there? What happens if you lose one of these fights?
Paul: I don’t plan on losing. I don’t train to lose. I feel like that’s probably your mindset. A lot of people try to project their mindsets…
Jones: Ain’t no projecting of a mindset. My question is, this is work because we’re all surprised that you keep winning these fights, right? But if somebody does beat you, how much interest stays in this when it stops being surprising?
Paul: They won’t. And I’m gonna be honest bro, I don’t know who the fuck you are. My PR team set up this interview.
Jones: Dude, all I know about you is that people don’t like you.
That’s a pretty damn good tease for an interview. I didn’t think Jones’ question was out of line, and that he made a valid point. We’ve seen this happen plenty of times in combat sports – the luster can wear off once someone loses. Mike Tyson, Brock Lesnar, Ronda Rousey…all lost a lot of mystique once they got knocked out for the first time. Paul’s showing a lot of confidence in himself, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but all it takes is one punch (and it doesn’t even need to be a clean one) for all of that training and preparation to go out the window.
Anyway, I’m still laughing at Paul cranking it up to 11 as soon as Jones pushes back on the possibility of him losing a fight.
Game Theory with Bomani Jones airs Friday nights at 11 PM on HBO.
