On September 14, 2019, Otto Wallin – an undefeated but little-known heavyweight from Sweden – was delivered to the T-Mobile Center in Las Vegas as a kind of human sacrifice, destined to fall quietly and probably early at the feet of Tyson Fury. Instead, he suffered a massive gash above Fury’s right eye early in the fight and lost a unanimous decision that seemed closer than the scorecards indicated. It was a gruesome night, but also, in true boxing fashion, unexpectedly great. “Congratulations to Otto,” Fury admitted after the fight. “Viking Warrior!”
Wallin, now 28-3, remains a world-class heavyweight, still working difficult to hit his last best shot. He’s been in the game for two full decades, turned pro in 2013, and has only been held back by one man all these years. That would be Anthony Joshua, a two-time unified heavyweight champion, former Olympic gold medalist and one of the strongest fighters in his division. “I’ve never been hit like that,” said Wallin, whose cornerback had enough sense to throw in the towel in December 2023 and take him to the hospital, where doctors surgically repaired Joshua’s broken nose. “Fury put a lot of weight into his punches, but Joshua’s shots were very difficult and brisk. Jake Paul could get hurt.”
He’s referring to Friday night when Paul, a former influencer whose only experience over 200 pounds came against 58-year-old Mike Tyson, will face the same Joshua in a fight sanctioned by conscientious officials of the Florida State Athletic Commission.
When Wallin tells me “it’s a hazardous fight,” he doesn’t mean a broken nose. “I mean, Jake Paul could get hurt,” he said.
And that’s the point again. The prospect of enduring damage is sold here. Oleksandr Usyk, the world’s greatest heavyweight who has outlived Joshua twice, might as well have been writing a promo saying, “If Anthony Joshua wants, he can kill this guy… I’ll be praying for Jake Paul.”
A year after Wallin’s loss to Fury, Paul made his debut against AnEsonGib. Paul is now 12-1 and has become a promotional force. Like I said before, Paul is good at boxing. But this fight isn’t like that. This is not a sport. This is a stunt that follows Evel Knievel’s ill-fated attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon. And it’s a disgrace that the FSAC sanctioned it with the same lack of transparency we have come to expect from boxing sanctioning bodies.
I’m not being a prude here. Not a hater. I don’t expect anyone to get seriously hurt, especially when the promoter and fighter are one and the same. I’m betting on a suppressed scandal in the name of trade. But there’s still that terrible chance, and now (thank you, Florida) a terrible precedent. What happens the next time a promoter wants to match the two-time unified heavyweight champion with a YouTuber-turned-boxer? Even more dangerously, this fight becomes a reasonable argument for any proposed mismatch.
“This particular fight is not something I would be comfortable with,” said Andy Foster, executive director of the California Athletic Commission. “And I nominated Tim Shipman for president.”
Tim Shipman is the executive director of FSAC. The presidency Foster is referring to is the Association of Boxing Commissions, a consortium of state regulatory agencies whose goal is, in theory, to bring common sense to the fighter protection industry. Foster held the position for seven years, and last summer he nominated Shipman of Florida, who, of course, promised to “protect combatants to the best of his ability.”
But when I reached out to him on Monday, Shipman made it pretty clear that he’s not in the business of answering questions about it, at least not when there’s a substantial goal on the line in his home state. Instead, he explained that being quoted by reporters was outside of his job description and referred me to bureaucrats in Tallahassee. I was asked to ask them questions in advance, which against my better judgment I did. Among them:
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Did the medical staff consider the decision to sanction the fight?
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What factors allowed the commission to overcome huge differences in size and experience to sanction the fight?
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If Jake Paul was a lesser-known cruiserweight with a record of 12-1 and a promoter, would this fight have been allowed?
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This is obviously a lucrative attraction for the state of Florida. Did this influence the decision?
Little surprise, I haven’t heard anything from the bureaucrats in Tallahassee. If you ask me, that was the point. But it’s worth remembering this the next time Florida, or ABC, makes a controversial decision on fighter safety. Whose side are they on?
The truth is, I put Foster in an uncomfortable position. He had enough respect for Shipman, a former Marine sergeant, to nominate him. And there is no beef with Paul. “I think Jake Paul is a good player,” Foster said. “He’s tough, he’s brave, he’s not scared. Probably no one will get hurt. But I’d like to see him get some heavyweight wins before something like that happens.”
I asked Foster whether his fellow commissioners feel pressure to punish suspected fights if they are lucrative. “There is some pressure,” he admitted. – I heard that.
And California? “The state never put pressure on me to take up a specific fight,” he said. – It’s not like I always succeed.
One thing he did right was preventing a 2021 fight between 58-year-old Evander Holyfield and 44-year-old Vitor Belfort, a former UFC lithe heavyweight champion. Holyfield, who had not fought in a decade, took the fight on eight days’ notice after Oscar De La Hoya withdrew due to Covid-19. “I had no idea Evander was even training,” Foster said.
Coincidentally, the Holyfield-Belfort event — which featured then-President Donald Trump calling for action on 9/11 — was held in Florida. Holyfield, the bravest fighter I ever beat, was knocked out in 109 seconds.
After the fight, Florida suspended Holyfield’s license for 30 days for health reasons.
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