On August 5, YouTube sensation Jake Paul (6-1) will take on former UFC fighter Nate Diaz in his first-ever boxing match. Initially announced in April for eight rounds, the match changed to 10 rounds in June.
Regardless of the sports betting sites you explore for this fight, you’ll find that Paul is a sizable favorite, including -390 odds at DraftKings and similar odds at other US Sportsbooks.
Below, we’ll preview each fighter heading into this fight and explore their chances of winning.
Paul has been a bit of a surprising entity in boxing. He’s participated in just seven fights but is 6-1 in his career. Of course, the first couple of opponents may not have been much of a challenge, which included AnEsonGib and former NBA player Nate Robinson. However, after this, he started beating legitimate MMA fighters like Ben Askren, Anderson Silva, and Tyron Woodley two times.
His first loss came against Tommy Fury in February 2023 in a split decision. The scoring from the judges was noticeably different. While two judges scored the bout 76-73 in favor of Fury, the other scored it 75-74 for Paul.
We expected a rematch between Fury and Paul, but we got this fight instead.
As for Paul’s style, he has pretty solid cardio and a penchant for knocking out his opponents (four of his wins came from it).
So what’s on the line here for Paul? Well, he’s somewhat made his name off of beating MMA guys, and if he loses to Diaz, it’ll be interesting to see where his career goes from here, or perhaps they then fight in an MMA bout.
Look for Paul to try to secure a knockout as early as possible.
As mentioned, this is Diaz’s first-ever boxing bout. While that might be the case, Diaz is an incredibly accomplished MMA fighter from his time in the UFC. He’s been active in the sport since 2004 and has a 22-13 record, making him a bit of an MMA betting darling.
Of those wins, the majority came from submissions (13), five knockouts, and four decisions. As you can see, Diaz, who won more than half of his fights by submission, won’t be able to use that to his advantage here.
If you look at his fight history, he’s beaten opponents like Conor McGregor, Anthony Pettis, Gray Maynard, and many others.
His last fight came in September 2022, where he beat Tony Ferguson and didn’t re-sign with the UFC.
Where Diaz has the upper hand, despite his +280 betting odds at DraftKings Sportsbook and other betting sites, is his elite cardio and stamina. Between these two, Diaz will easily make the full ten rounds, making this fight more interesting than just eight rounds.
If Diaz can avoid a knockout and it goes the full ten rounds, Paul is still the favorite here, but to get there, he would’ve needed to give Paul a difficult time to get there.
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