Jake Paul likely never fighting in MMA, says promotion that signed him: 'I think he's pretty set on boxing'

An executive from the Professional Fighters League said it is unlikely that boxing star Jake Paul will cross over into mixed martial arts.

Dan Hardy, PFL's director of fighter operations for Europe, directly contradicted the promotion's founder Donn Davis when he said he did not think Paul would make the jump to MMA.

In January, Davis said Paul's MMA career has been delayed "because he's killing it in boxing."

"So will MMA happen with the PFL? Yes, it will. Has it been delayed? Yes, it has. My guess is the fall of this year, but I don't think it's going to be before that," Davis added, per BJPenn.com.

Hardy, a former UFC fighter who joined the promotion at the executive level in 2023, spoke to outlet MMA Fighting and was asked if Paul's MMA debut had been put off so long that it seemed it was no longer going to happen.

"Yeah, I don't know. I'm not seeing him make any moves in that direction, certainly from my perspective," Hardy replied. "I mean, he just called out Anthony Joshua the other day did he not? He's certainly making things interesting for the combat sports world and he's definitely a disrupter. That’s the main purpose that he's serving right now, and he’s a benefit to the PFL in that regard as well."

Joshua is a highly respected English boxer with a 28-4 record. The 35-year-old last fought, and lost by knockout, in September 2024 to Daniel Dubois.

'Do we ever see him in MMA? I don’t think so.'

Hardy then dropped a bomb that likely will not please his company's ownership.

"Do we ever see him in MMA? I don’t think so," Hardy stated. "I think he's pretty set on boxing right now. I don't know, I don't know, it’s a lot of work for him to cross over into MMA. He's not going to fight anybody that you've ever heard of before, you know, it’s going to have to be a decent name or people won't watch it. Old guys in MMA could still handle business, I think, with Jake Paul."

Paul claimed last October that he would be entering the MMA arena following his fight with Mike Tyson.

Earlier in the summer, Paul expressed that he did not want an easy opponent for his first time in the cage and said he could likely "beat Nate Diaz."

Paul went on, "It would be tough, of course. It's a 50/50 fight, but I don't want to go into something where I'm going to be outclassed like fighting Khabib Nurmagomedov in my first fight."

Nurmagomedov is considered one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time and retired undefeated at 29-0.

Diaz, 39, recently signaled he wanted to return to the UFC having last fought in 2022 when he beat UFC legend Tony Ferguson.

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