Triller Fight Night

4.19,21

Jake Paul, Ben Askren

Triller fight night went down this weekend, and whether or not you wanted to see Jake Paul win, the show was filled with entertainment. From the several fights, the performances, the announcers and the back stage skits, this is something I was happy to pay the Pay Per View for, and I am hoping they can figure out how to top this again in the future. Triller seems to be an incredible business model that is continuing to expand, and Jake Paul is apparently a superior business man himself.

While Jake Paul is mostly known for his YouTube channel, he has formulated a some sort of a love for the sport of boxing. Maybe it is a true love for boxing, or just humiliating others and proving them wrong, but Jake just participated in his third professional boxing match, ending all the same way. Jake Paul went from boxing another YouTuber, AnEsonGib, to former NBA player Nate Robinson, to Ben Askren, former wrestling Olympian and UFC athlete. Jake Paul managed to knock out them all, which was surprising to many. At least Nate and Ben were athletes, though, none of these athletes are actually professional boxers, either.

Did Jake Paul strategically call out Ben because he was not a boxer? Because his prime time was over? Can he actually fight? Was the fight fixed because he has a share in Triller Network? Yup, that is correct. As one of the most successful YouTubers today, Jake Paul owns a share in the Triller Network business, that managed to put on this massive scale Pay Per View event. For the fight alone, it was revealed that Jake Paul took home $690,000 for his winning. With all of the Pay Per View purchases, Triller brought in over $65 Million, so we can assume Jake saw a bit of that as well. I hate to think they would fake something like this, but no, it wouldn’t surprise me. I am though, going to pretend that I have no idea because I want more. This was fun.

With a few prelim fights prior to the Jake Paul and Ben Askren fight, there were several performances. From Saweetie, to Doja Cat, Mount Westmore and Justin Bieber, live music was present and fantastic. Triller is a platform super invested in the culture and hip-hop space, so it was evident that they had some really big names come out and perform during their special night. On top of that, Triller recently acquired Verzuz TV, a celebration of music catalogs in a head-to-head competition style format. Snoop Dogg, E 40 and Too Short have all recently participated in the Verzuz battle, so its as fitting that Mount Westmore was able to perform (with Ice Cube as their fourth member). All performances and outfits were incredible. But of course, Snoop Dogg commentating was event better.

After the Nate Robinson fight, it was a no brainer that Snoop Dogg would be back to commentate again. He knew his stuff, but also was so hysterical with it, he was a meme for weeks. In the earlier matches, Snoop Dogg would yell “7/11” at the contenders for having their arms down, leaving their heads open to get hit. “He’s open like 7/11!” Snoop would say, and just holler out 7/11, over and over. Snoop said he knew Jake Paul was going to come out and win, and demanded his money from Dana White for saying so. This showing was completely separate from the UFC, but it is a given that Dana would have been rooting for Ben.

In addition to Snoop Dogg, Pete Davidson was another commentator to not only be on the judge panel during the fight, but had multiple skits and interviews back stage prior to the fight actually happening. The most memorable piece of the backstage skits, I would have to say is Pete and Jack Harlow visiting Jake Paul back stage prior to his fight. Pete told Jake Paul that he had bet against him in the Nate Robinson fight, because he had no idea that he could really fight, but wished him luck today. Only to later say that he was pulling for Ben when he was back with the panel. Well, things back stage continued to get awkward when Pete asked Jake about the sexual assault allegations that had recently been released about himself. Jake laughed it off a bit and said “you can’t bring that up man,” though laughing and brushing it off. Jack Harlow was kind of quiet, until mentioning “wow I would not want all of this right before my fight,” which actually seemed to set Jake off quite a bit. Pete then asked what his favorite color was to lighten the mood. Everyone in the room was wearing yellow, so Pete guessed yellow, and Jake made it very awkward in his responses. The awakardness continued when Pete asked about Jake Paul’s mascot whom was a human dressed as a robot. In all seriousness, Jake said it was a real robot. The interaction between the three was hysterical but so awkward. It was truthfully hard to tell if it was a planed comedy skit or not, but Pete Davidson later taking Ben’s side made me think it was something truly as awkward as it appeared.

So, coming down to fight time, Ben does his walk out, and Jake Paul follows with his “Real Robot” right behind him. The fight begins, and we’re all in tuned. Ultimately, Jake Paul knocked out Ben Askren in under two minutes. Jake Paul goes crazy after, hops over the announcer booth to take a shot with Snoop Dogg, and it is all over from there. Some called it an early stoppage, but Ben was trembling when he stood up to walk back towards Jake, so the referee said felt he was unfit to move on. Ben Askren can be seen walking back to his dressing room smiling, as if he was happy or did not seem to care. Perhaps he is a good sport whom was prepared, maybe he was said to get a good chunk of money for doing it and got it over with quick, or perhaps he really just did not care. Many are upset with the fight and how it went down. Perhaps because they are Jake Paul haters, they think the fight was fixed, or they feel that these acts are tainting the sport of boxing. I do not think that this will stop real boxing, we do not even have real boxers fighting yet. I find this pure entertainment, and we need that during times like this.

Overall, commentators were fantastic. The live performances made my quarantine yet again. The fight was honestly whatever, but I hope there are more to come. I would like to see Jake Paul take on a real boxer next, to see what he can really do in the ring with someone whom has trained just as much as he has. Not mad at this fight, though. Framed or not, the entertainment was there.