Jake Paul beats former UFC champ Tyron Woodley in boxing match

Image: Showtime Boxing

The unlikely run of Jake Paul as both a boxer and pay-per-view draw continued Sunday in front of a raucous cloud in Cleveland, OH, as he defeated former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley by split decision.

The three judges scored the bout 77-75 (Paul), 77-75 (Woodley) and 78-74 (Paul).

In the post-fight interview, Woodley called for a rematch and got in Paul’s face, saying no one else would sell PPVs like he could. Paul said if Woodley got an “I love Jake Paul” tattoo tonight, they would run it back. Woodley agreed, even though they had already agreed to that stipulation prior to the bout.

While the first three rounds featured a lot of inactivity by the plodding Woodley, the former champion hurt Paul (4-0) in the fourth and patiently stalked him the rest of the round.

The rest of the fight was Woodley (0-1) not staying busy enough and Paul doing just enough to win rounds as both men often looked like the relative boxing rookies that they are.

It was an eight round professional bout fought at a 190-pound catchweight.

Paul was the younger of the two fighters and also the bigger of the two with four inches of height.

Paul was coming off a tremendously successful financial outing against former Bellator champion and UFC fighter Ben Askren, knocking him out in the first round. That was his last event for Triller before he signed a multi-fight deal with Showtime.

This was Woodley’s first ever professional boxing match. He was coming off four straight losses that ended his UFC run.

The card didn’t feature any other MMA fighters on the card, but Ariel Helwani was part of the broadcast team for the evening.