Jake Paul once had a career with Disney (2016-2017), playing Dirk Mann in a comedy television series named Bizaardvark. But after his firing, he transitioned into professional boxing, and now co-owns a company, Most Valuable Promotions, promoting boxing and MMA events. Considering his own trajectory after his Disney exit, ‘The Problem Child’ offered a similar career switch to Ryan Clark.

“If you are down, we could negotiate a deal to make you boxing on MMA TV,” said Paul to Clark on The Pivot Podcast. “You versus Pat McAfee.”

Unlike Ryan Clark, Pat McAfee has already made his professional wrestling debut with WWE. So, when Jake Paul proposed a matchup against McAfee, Clark shared a contradictory opinion.

“Nah, that’s not going to happen,” he said. “Pat’s my guy. But I got a couple I can put on the list. We’ll have a conversation about that.”

Earlier last month, on July 20, when Clark was in the middle of a live broadcast of NFL Live, he received the news of his dismissal from the ESPN network.

ESPN claims that the network originally intended to notify Clark during broader company layoffs the following morning. However, executives panicked after several media outlets reportedly reached out about leaking the story. Hence, the network decided to inform Clark beforehand so he wouldn’t find out about the layoffs on social media.

Ryan Clark became the first of the many NFL analysts to receive a termination letter from ESPN. Earlier this year, the network merged with NFL Media in a $3B deal through which the network gained full control, ownership, and operational management of NFL media assets like NFL Network and more. In exchange, the NFL received a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

This deal also resulted in the merger of two standout media networks into a single entity, creating multiple redundancies across several roles, including on-air analysts.

During his 11-year tenure at ESPN (2015–2026), Emmy-winning analyst Ryan Clark hosted multiple flagship programs. NFL Live, Get Up, and First Take were some of the prominent names. He also co-hosted a weekly dedicated UFC and mixed martial arts studio program, DC & RC, alongside former UFC double champion Daniel Cormier.

And as it seems, that’s the closest Clark has been to an MMA fight.