Hasim Rahman Jr. admits he asked for more weight allowance, but he doesn’t think that’s why his boxing match with Jake Paul was called off.
“My body just wouldn’t allow it,” Rahman Jr. said in an Instagram post hours after it was announced that Saturday’s entire event at Madison Square Garden was canceled. “It wouldn’t let me get to 200 pounds but where in boxing do you see them canceling fights a full week in advance? I didn’t even get my last week to get down as low as possible. I said to this man, ‘When it comes to fines, keep the wallet. keep the purse. I’d fight you for the minimum of $5,000.” That’s how much it means to me and that’s how confident I am in taking him down.”
Rahman Jr. detailed his side of the story after Paul and Most Valuable Promotions went public with a press release and two videos that pointed to him as the reason for the cancellation. Rahman Jr. said while he was asking for more weight allowance, Paul and his team made him fail – and then turned down any kind of matchmaking supplement.
Rahman Jr. finds this hypocritical. Paul announced in preparation for the fight that he lightly punched Rahman when the two trained together — a time when Rahman Jr. weighed around 230 pounds.
“Let him tell you, he already beat me in the ass in the gym when I was 230,” Rahman Jr said. “So if you beat me up while I was 230, what’s the problem with fighting me while.” am I 215? What’s the problem fighting me when I’m 210? It’s clearly them who don’t want to fight. I’m not retiring from the fight. They don’t want the fight. I never said I didn’t want this fight. The only thing I can infer from this is that they are afraid. They tried to pull me down.”
According to Rahman Jr., his team even offered a replacement to fight Paul — someone more of a natural cruiserweight, Muhsin Cason — on Saturday. They were still denied.
“(He) could have saved the show,” Rahman Jr. said. “Jake Paul could have fought a real boxer, but he doesn’t want to fight a real boxer. He doesn’t want to fight a real fight. He wanted to suck me dry and fight me, which I will not allow him to do. Now they didn’t move the goal posts and got closer to the finish line and let me weigh all those extra days early and then pulled the plug on the fight like, ‘We don’t want to fight.’
“My team still wanted to fight 100 percent, still ready, willing and able to take out Jake Paul on August 6th. So you all blame your boy Jake Paul for not having that fight. It has nothing to do with me or my team. We let her know what the real reason was and Jake Paul is afraid to fight.”
Watch Rahman Jr.’s full statement below: