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Yoel Romero claims Jake Paul backed out of boxing match: ‘They don’t want to face a real fighter’

“Soldier of God” thinks “Problem Child” was too scared to follow through with a boxing match against the former UFC title challenger.

Jake Paul thought twice about boxing Yoel Romero, according to the multiple-time Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) title challenger.

Romero vs. Phil Davis will headline Bellator 266, which will take place inside SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on Sat., Sept. 18, 2021, via Showtime. The fight marks Romero’s Bellator debut. Ahead of the clash, the former Olympian said he was in talks to box “The Problem Child.”

“What happened was, initially Jake Paul wanted to do a fight with Yoel, but then when Yoel wanted to do it, the Paul team canceled the fight,” Romero told Ariel Helwani, through an interpreter, on The MMA Hour (via MMANews). “Initially they wanted to do the fight with Yoel. That was when he was just getting out of UFC, he had not signed with Bellator yet, and they said eventually no they don’t want Yoel…. They decided to go with Ben Askren.

“They don’t want to face a real fighter,” Romero added. “[Jake and Logan Paul] are just trying to make it a show and they don’t want to ruin their show. They’re finding the easy fights. Even though (Logan) fought Mayweather, but the thing is, there’s a huge weight difference.”

Bellator 266 also boasts Neiman Gracie vs. Mark Lemminger and Alejandra Lara vs. DeAnna Bennett, as well as appearances by Georgi Karakhanyan, Christian Edwards and Alex Polizzi.


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