Why are Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley fighting?

As we all know via the deep history of combat sports in America, sometimes one celebrity boxing match against a lighter MMA fighter leads to another. It’s the Circle of Life and hacky social media promotion, so here’s the original dust-up between Paul and Woodley, which took place as Paul’s hands were being wrapped for his fight against Ben Askren.

In combat sports, it’s normal to have someone from your corner see the hands being taped before a fight.

“I got my belts,” says Woodley

“But you don’t know about these,” says J’Leon Love, one of the cornermen for Paul with two boxing gloves in his hand. Love is clearly trying to bait Woodley, and the trash talk continues.

Was it planned in advance? Was this all scripted for the cameras? We’ll leave it to you to divine intent. But it certainly wasn’t bad for business.

Woodley later said this will be the “easiest fight of my career and biggest purse of my career all in one night,” in an interview with former ESPN writer Ariel Helwani (wonder what happened to that guy?) “This is getting done for the culture, the whole MMA community and boxing community, to rid this guy of combat sports,” says Woodley.

For a former champ that lost his last four MMA contests, this is simply a win-win situation. And for Paul, it’s another legitimate athlete that’s willing to get in a ring with him in a sport that’s not his specialty.

And that’s why we’re here. Something that may or may not resemble credibility, and money.