Jake Paul is still looking for a replacement opponent after canceling his November 14th fight against Gervonta Davis. According to Daniel Cormier, he should not be looking at former UFC heavyweight champion
Francis Ngannou.
Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions pulled the plug on the “Tank” fight after a lawsuit came out alleging Davis repeatedly assaulted and threatened to kill an ex-girlfriend. Rumor has it there’s video footage of some incidents detailed in the lawsuit, leading Paul to declare he couldn’t move forward with the fight against a “human piece of garbage.”
MVP is now scrambling to find a replacement opponent for a replacement date in December. One fighter they approached was Francis Ngannou, who quickly passed saying the fight “made no sense.” Paul publicly clapped back at Ngannou, trying to draw him into a war of words.
“Dear Francis – just say you already got humiliated in boxing and are scared to lose to Jake Paul,” he wrote on X. “I accept that. You are light work my friend. Stuck in mud.”
“Choose your words wisely boy,” Ngannou replied. “I agree that you need someone to discipline you for what you did to Mike Tyson, but stay in your lane.”
Former two-division UFC champion Daniel Cormier posted a YouTube video on the subject and agreed that Paul is on dangerous ground provoking Ngannou.
“I don’t care what Anthony Joshua did to Francis Ngannou,” Cormier said. “Jake Paul gets in there with Francis, Francis will knock his head off this planet. You don’t want those Francis problems.”
“I don’t care that you’re a boxer,” he added. “I watched Francis put down Tyson Fury. Sure, Anthony Joshua beat him, but even if Jake got power, I don’t think he’s got the power to be dealing with Francis. It only takes one to land, and he’s going to put you out.”
Paul is usually meticulous when it comes to picking fighters too old or small to hurt him, but Cormier thinks this last-minute salvage job could be messing up that streak of expert sandbagging.
“You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes,” he concluded. “The stupid prize will be fighting Francis Ngannou. I don’t care what money Jake Paul would make. He should not be fighting Francis Ngannou. Francis will put him out. Big Frank doesn’t know how to play games, Big Frank doesn’t know how to pull his punches. Big Frank’s going to put you down.”
“Stay away from Francis Ngannou.”
Bookies have Ngannou at +400 to fight Paul, with Anthony Joshua (+250) and Ryan Garcia (+150) in the lead. The clock is ticking on finding a replacement that will carry enough hype for Netflix to go ahead with an event. Ngannou would certainly do that, but is Paul really prepared to handle his one-punch knockout power?
