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Tyron Woodley Reveals How Floyd Mayweather’s Party Was the Starting Point for Jake Paul Feud

Published 08/28/2021, 10:02 AM EDT

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Former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley recently explained how his rivalry with Jake Paul started. ‘The Chosen One’, who will face ‘The Problem Child’ this Sunday, appeared for an interview with BT Sport’s Ariel Helwani.

The former UFC champ discussed various things in the show, including his recent confrontation with Paul’s team, gaining some fans, his boxing debut, and how his feud with Jake started.

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‘They called, they prank called everybody,” Woodley said. “They were supposed to be cornering Ben (Askren). I didn’t train Ben for the fight. I was at fight camp to fight Luque. Ben wanted me just there… So I go to the fight.”

“So I get a call and (it’s like) ‘hey this is… We are from this network, you know, we want to talk about Ben’s coach’… I’m like, ‘alright man, let’s do this’… so they go through some random stuff and then like, ‘what do you think about Jake?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t give a f*ck about Jake, I don’t know what he doing, I don’t care what he doing,'” he added.

via Getty

For the unknowns, Woodley and Ben are collegiate and have been close friends for years. ‘The Chosen One’ went to Askren’s preparations prior to him facing Paul in April. He didn’t know at that time who prank called him. The former UFC champion revealed he just texted them back by saying not to call him anymore.

‘I Don’t Care About the Fight’- Tyron Woodley Says He Won’t Spare Anyone Disrespecting His Mom

How Floyd Mayweather’s birthday bash planted the seeds for Tyron Woodley vs Jake Paul?

Woodley (19-7) got invited to Mayweather‘s birthday bash in Miami, Florida. There he met Jake, who, according to Woodley, was under some drug effect. He didn’t talk to Woodley, even though the latter asked him up.

Suddenly, his phone rang up multiple times, and he also noticed Jake‘s vlog releasing on social media. “So JLeon (pro-boxer) and Jake (were) pranking me on the phone,” he added. “So what they did, they didn’t know, they turned the phone towards a camera and my number was exposed.”

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“So to this day, 300-400 calls a day. Every time I go live, a million calls a day. They try to interrupt the ‘live’. So that part made me p*ssed off and wanted to beat somebody’s a**,” he added.

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Although the rivalry started with a general prank call, the ending is certainly going to be violent bloodshed. Both the fighters intensified the build-up of the match and now one cannot wait for the fight to begin.

What did you make of the starting of their beef up? Let us know.

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Written by:

Akshyay Srichandan Mahapatra

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Akshyay Mahapatra is a UFC author for EssentiallySports. He wished to combine his passion for the UFC (that he has been following since 2008) as well as his love for writing. This motivated him to enter the world of combat sports journalism.
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