Jake Paul opened up about wanting to train at the American Kickboxing Academy (AKA). Javier Mendez, who’s one of the worlds’ most renowned MMA coach is the founder of the MMA gym. After having coached the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Daniel Cormier, Cain Velasquez, and many more, he as well as his gym, AKA, have built a solid reputation for themselves.

Moreover, as the popularity of his gym went up, it soon became a point of attraction for many fighters who want to train with the elites. Over the years we have seen many new and old fighters join AKA in order to get the best training with the dream company.

Recently, another budding name in the world of combat sports was in talks of training at AKA. Furthermore, after settling his feet in boxing, this athlete is talking about transitioning to MMA. It’s none other than famous YouTuber turned boxer, Jake Paul.

Does Javier Mendez know about Jake Paul coming to AKA?

Mendez, of late, appeared for an interview with the MMA Junkie. Over the chat, coach Jav revealed about the entire Jake Paul situation and the talks about him joining AKA. 

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The journalist first informed the coach and said, “Yesterday, we talked to Jake Paul, and he was talking about going into mixed martial arts. We think it’s already amazing what he’s done in boxing, but MMA is a different sport.”

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He then continued, “he [Jake Paul]  brought up your name. We were curious, how did you guys meet? How did all that come about? And how long would it take somebody like that to get them ready for a professional mixed martial arts fight?

Coach then revealed that he was unaware of Paul transitioning to MMA. However, he did know that the boxer was training with one of the coaches at AKA. Mendez said, “Jacob Chavez is a very close friend of mine and he’s an AKA coach… Jacob is with Jake Paul so I don’t really know anything else other than you know, he’s trained with an AKA coach. Which is Jacob Chavez.”

Coach’s thoughts on Jake Paul’s transition to MMA

Sharing his thoughts on Paul doing MMA, the AKA coach said, “if Jake Paul wanted to do MMA, I’m sure he can you know, he’s a wrestler and now he’s got boxing and he’s a great athlete. So I think getting him ready wouldn’t take too long.”

However, Mendez clarified that the level of competition is also very important for Paul. Coach mentioned, “but at the same time it depends a lot on the level you know. Where are you gonna put him? You can’t put him with someone that’s got great jiu-jitsu or great wrestling. They can take him down because he’s not going to be able to survive that. He’s gonna need time.”

Not sure about training Jake Paul, although for now, the full focus of coach Jav is on training Islam Makhachev for his upcoming title bout against Charles Oliveira at UFC 280.

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