Follow Us
Eddie Hearn hopes Nate Diaz beats Jake Paul — but his gut feeling tells him otherwise.
Diaz makes his professional boxing debut when he faces Paul in an eight-round 185-pound boxing match taking place Aug. 5 in Dallas, Texas.
It will also be his first fight since departing the UFC last year when he submitted Tony Ferguson in the final bout of his promotional contract in September.
As for Paul, it will be his first boxing match since losing to Tommy Fury earlier this year, an actual professional boxer. With that setback — the first defeat of his career — the YouTuber-turned-boxer has gone back to fighting aging former UFC stars.
And while Hearn would prefer for Diaz to win, given how he’s been at odds with Paul in the past, he still expects a comfortable win for the latter.
“With Nate, no one knows,” Hearn told the Matchroom YouTube channel (via Boxing Scene). “He could get completely smashed to pieces in a round, or he could be a great fighter. I hear he used to spar with Andre Ward and stuff like this.
“If you’re asking me, Jake Paul beats him comfortably. I really like Nate Diaz and I hope he wins – mainly so he doesn’t put me to sleep on the concrete! But I think he gets stopped.”
While it’s true that Diaz has sparred and trained with the likes of Andre Ward, he’s also 38 and well past his prime. Recent footage of his pad work hasn’t done him any favors either.
That is also one reason why Hearn feels Diaz made the right move by directly fighting Paul instead of having a warmup for his professional boxing debut.
“The danger with a warmup fight or an interim fight is people can find out how bad you actually are or, if you got talent, people can find out how good you are, but it’s a risky game because you are rolling the dice for small money and you may lose the opportunity at a big fight,” Hearn added. “What I like that Nate [Diaz] has done, is no one knows. He could get completely smashed to pieces in a round or he could be a great fighter.”