Paul Hughes picked Jake Paul, and the annoying part for anyone hoping to dunk on the pick is that his reasoning is boring in the best possible way. According to MiddleEasy, the PFL contender pointed to size and activity as the two edges that tilt the Christmas Eve fight toward Paul, while still giving Cedric Doumbé a real chance. That’s the right read. I’d push it further. Those two edges are basically the entire fight, and Doumbé’s live window has an expiration date somewhere around the middle rounds.
The basics first. MVP made it official on X on Nov. 2: Paul vs. Doumbé, Thursday, Dec. 24, Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai, tickets on sale Nov. 15, and a promo line of “SANTA VS. THE GRINCH” that I will be thinking about for weeks. Ariel Helwani reported the details on X. It’s eight rounds at cruiserweight, and the broadcaster is still TBA.
The size problem is real
Cruiserweight is a long walk for a guy whose most recent work came in PFL’s cage. Helwani didn’t dance around it. He wrote that his biggest concern was the size difference, adding, “Jake is significantly bigger. That’s hard to overlook.”
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Darren Till went louder, because of course he did. In clips Helwani posted, Till put numbers on it: “Cédric Doumbé’s at 170 pounds... Jake Paul’s 220, 225 pounds.” Take that with a healthy pinch of salt. Till said he’d been in camp for two weeks with his coach and believed a price had been agreed for his own Dec. 24 fight with Paul before Doumbé’s name showed up out of nowhere. That’s a man with a grievance and a calendar full of wasted sparring. He also called Paul a “fat juicehead,” which is not a measurement.
Still, knock 10 pounds off either side of Till’s math and you’re left with a gap that matters in every clinch, every lean on the ropes and every exchange where a bigger man can afford to eat one clean shot to land his own. Hughes flagging size is the most obvious call in the building, and obvious calls are obvious for a reason.
Activity is the sneaky one
This is where the pick goes from reasonable to strong. Per Helwani, Doumbé hasn’t competed since an MMA win in May 2024, which left him at 6-1. Helwani said he was told Doumbé quietly stepped away to focus on family and other personal matters. Fair enough. But that means roughly two and a half years without a fight by the time the bell rings in Dubai.
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The boxing gap is wilder. Doumbé is 1-0 as a pro boxer, and that lone fight was in April 2015. More than 11 years between boxing matches. Different gloves, no kicks to set up the hands, no checking leg kicks to keep a bigger man honest. All the stuff that made him dangerous gets taken off the table.
Paul isn’t exactly fresh off a busy schedule either. His last fight was the Anthony Joshua bout in December 2025, so he’s coming off about a year away, and Helwani credited him for stepping back into the ring after what he called a “devastating injury.” Rust and a recovered injury are legitimate question marks. But Paul’s last camp was a boxing camp, under boxing rules, against a heavyweight. Doumbé’s last camp was for a cage. Those are very different flavors of ring rust.
Where Doumbé actually wins
Hughes is right to give Doumbé a real chance, and the reason is that 63-7-1 kickboxing record Helwani cited. That’s 71 fights of pure striking at a high level, and you don’t stack up that many wins without timing, distance and the kind of reflexes that punish lazy jabs. If Paul comes out stiff after a year off and a serious injury, the first two or three rounds are Doumbé’s best shot, while his legs are fresh and Paul is still finding his range.
After that, I think the math catches up. Eight rounds is a long night to absorb a bigger man’s weight, and nobody knows what Doumbé’s gas tank looks like for a boxing pace after more than a decade away from the format. If he hasn’t hurt Paul by the halfway mark, the size and the reps take over.
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The business is the point
Helwani’s other observation deserves more attention than Till’s insults. With MVP’s recent merger with PFL, putting one of PFL’s biggest stars across from Paul makes sense, and Helwani suggested that if this fight is an incentive to pull Doumbé back into MMA competition, everybody wins. I’ll take that trade. I love a villain, I love chaos, and a guy calling himself the Grinch on Christmas Eve in Dubai is a better sell than most title fights I watched this year.
Till called the whole thing “a farce again.” Hughes, who has less reason to be bitter, landed in a far more useful spot: Paul is bigger and he’s fought more recently. I’m with Hughes. Paul by late stoppage or decision, with the caveat that if Doumbé lands clean before Round 4, I’ll be writing a very different column on Dec. 25.
