Scott Coker: Logan Paul ‘absolutely’ welcome to fight in the Bellator cage
If Logan Paul wants to transition to mixed martial arts one day, he’s got a standing invitation to compete in Bellator MMA.
On Sunday night, the YouTube superstar turned boxing hopeful spent eight rounds in the ring with Floyd Mayweather in a special boxing exhibition bout that aired on Showtime pay-per-view. While Paul has now engaged in three boxing matches between amateur, pro and now this exhibition, he actually comes from a wrestling background where he was a fifth place finisher during his senior year in high school in Ohio.
In fact, Paul displayed some of those grappling skills in order to slow down Mayweather in their boxing match as he consistently clinched throughout the fight while also leaning on his smaller opponent to use his height and weight advantage.
While it seems like boxing remains his primary focus, Paul isn’t opposed to testing himself in MMA at some point in the future.
“Yeah I’d do MMA for sure” Paul said at the post-fight press conference. “Because I am a good grappler. I’m a wrestler at heart and I think it’d be silly of me to not use it in boxing, to the best of my ability.”
In the past, UFC president Dana White has scoffed at promoting Logan Paul or his brother Jake in a fight inside the octagon but Bellator president Scott Coker has a much different take when asked if he’d be interested in working with them.
Coker was in attendance at the card in Miami where he witnessed Paul survive 24 minutes in the ring with arguably one of the greatest boxers of all time and he’d welcome the chance to see him compete in the Bellator cage.
“The answer is absolutely,” Coker told MMA Fighting when asked if he’d give Paul a fight. “I think this kid has shown athletic ability to go in there with Floyd but also we know he’s a high school all-star wrestler from Ohio and I think they’re just getting better and better at combat sports. If he wanted to get into MMA, we would do it.
“The thing with Floyd, come on, how many people could do that? Go eight rounds with Floyd. You can’t tell me Floyd at some point in the fight [wasn’t] trying to take it to him and he couldn’t put him away. So to me that is a victory for Logan, as far as I’m concerned. As far as combat sports, I think Logan just upped his value. Was it a great fight? No, it was a lot of dirty boxing going on in that fight but let’s face it, Floyd usually goes and closes the gap and takes care of business and he didn’t do it this time.”
Coker had previously met with Paul to discuss his interest in combat sports but at the time it was clear that he was only thinking about boxing.
These days, Paul has gone as far as saying that he will take at least one MMA fight before his athletic career is over and Coker welcomes the chance to do business with him.
“Logan and I talked two years ago,” Coker revealed. “We met with his manager here in Miami, I was here for the Super Bowl. He was here for the Super Bowl and we met and we had about a two hour lunch. Great kid, seems super smart. I could tell that he wanted to get into fighting in a more serious manner and I asked him would you fight in mixed martial arts right now? He said ‘no, I’d rather focus on boxing’ and I said Ok, if you change your mind, let me now. So I’ve had a conversation with him and I’ve had a conversation with Jake as well about fighting in MMA.
“For now they want to focus on boxing but if the opportunity was there, I definitely would put them in the cage. When I say that, they’re not going to go out and fight in a real fight against a guy like Gegard Mousasi or somebody that has that experience. We’d treat them like any other fighter with the experience that they have and take it from there.”
Following his performance against Mayweather on Sunday night, Paul will undoubtedly have a lot of offers coming at him across combat sports and he seems willing to listen to any and all of them.
“Any time I can entertain I’m happy,” Paul said. “Whether it’s me getting in a boxing ring and risking my life, whether it’s me getting stunnered in the WWE and preparing for a match there, a podcast, I just love entertaining. I love making people happy with stuff I love doing.”
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