“Wild and Disrespectful”: DAZN’s American Icon Poster Ft. Mayweather and Crawford Sparks Outrage Over Jake Paul’s Inclusion

‘DAZN’ may call themselves the ‘home of boxing’. But their decision to include Jake Paul in their ‘X’ update showcasing the “American icons” of boxing stirred up a massive controversy recently.

Fans didn’t have any objection regarding the three other boxers featured in the post. However, the comments section of the update revealed that many of them refuted the inclusion of ‘The Problem Child’ in the snap attached to DAZN’s post.

Lots of new-age fans may be impressed by Paul’s in-ring skills. But the avid followers have been bashing him for a long time now. They accuse Paul of hand-picking his rivals who are inferior to him in terms of skills.

Initially, they derided him for building his record by beating retired UFC fighters inside the ring. The Problem Child did transition to fighting professional boxers after this, but with a considerable age difference.

So, needless to say, the accusations of selecting low-caliber rivals continued to flow.

Fans wouldn’t have cared much if the caption to ‘DAZN’s’ post read something else. But it labeled Jake Paul an American boxing icon, which most followers found pretty hard to digest.

“American icons everywhere you look on DAZN”

As expected, the comments section got flooded with fans criticizing ‘DAZN’s’ decision to include Paul among the great Floyd Mayweather, Terrence Crawford, and Claressa Shields.

One such comment read, “Putting Jake Paul up here is wild and disrespectful to real fighters”

Another follower expressed, “Jake Paul? this gotta be a troll post.”

One more follower carried on with the same narrative and penned, “I think it’s pretty disrespectful to compare all these fighters to Jake Paul.”

This fan said it the best, “Why is Jake Paul on this? Take nothing from him, I just think he belongs elsewhere.”

Well, Paul has been criticized by fans for pretty much the entirety of his pro-boxing career. So that is nothing new for him. But the choice of his last rival, Mike Tyson has made him intolerable to a lot of avid boxing fans, and adults in general.

Paul vs Tyson did more damage than expected

‘The Problem Child’ may be looking at his legacy to claim he beat Mike Tyson when he took on the fight against the beloved veteran.

But Tyson will be a 58-year-old retired champion when this fight takes place on 15 November. So…

All Paul managed to do was earn even more hatred from the boxing community. Several UFC stars, including Sean Strickland and Conor McGregor, also derided Paul’s decision to fight Tyson, who retired from the sport way back in 2006.

So, this DAZN poster doesn’t help his cause either. That said, Paul doesn’t care. He has the fanbase to make tens of millions from boxing and even though most of these are gimmicky fights at best, any time someone steps into the ring with him, they come out with 6 to 7 figure purses.

So, neither party is complaining!