Jake Paul has a gift for spotting an open door and jamming his foot in it before anyone else notices it’s ajar. On Monday, Championship Rounds posted that Shakur Stevenson had announced his release from his Zuffa Boxing contract. Thirty-one minutes later, Paul was on X asking the obvious follow-up out loud.
“Can Jon Jones request a release like Shakur Stevenson so we can go ahead and do this Francis Ngannou vs Jon Jones fight?” Paul wrote, before adding, “They already said they are never working with Francis. So let Jon fly and we can give the fans what they want. Please and thank you.” He tagged both @JonnyBones and @francis_ngannou, which is the internet equivalent of shoving two guys toward each other at a bar.
My take: Paul is right, and I’m a little annoyed that he’s the one who said it first.
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The Stevenson Blueprint
The Stevenson news is the whole hook here. Per Championship Rounds, Stevenson asked out after Zuffa Boxing couldn’t secure the fights he wanted, and he was remarkably calm about it. “It is what it is, this is the business of boxing. I’m not mad at anyone. But upon all of these issues, I requested to be released from Zuffa Boxing. Over the weekend, my request has been granted.”
That’s about as clean a breakup as this business produces. No lawsuit, no burned bridges, no 2 a.m. posts. A fighter wanted specific fights, the company couldn’t deliver them, he asked to leave, and they let him. Paul looked at that and asked why the same logic shouldn’t apply to the heavyweight fight people have been daydreaming about for years.
Take Paul’s premise at face value for a second. He didn’t say who exactly refuses to work with Ngannou or where they said it, so treat that part as Paul’s claim, not gospel. But if the people holding the paper genuinely refuse to ever work with Ngannou, then keeping Jones in place does nothing for the one fight that matters most. You’re paying for a parking spot for a car that’s never allowed to leave the garage.
Why The UFC Won’t Love This
I’m not naive about the other side. Stevenson’s release happened on the boxing side of the house, and the people running that house are not in the charity business. Dana White said last week, per MMA Mania, “I want $10 billion after we get out of this deal.” Folks chasing a number with that many zeros don’t usually wave goodbye to their biggest names because a guy with a broken jaw asked nicely on social media.
And the company clearly knows how to let people go when it wants to. Farid Basharat is publicly beefing with Payton Talbott after what MMA Mania called a controversial UFC release, and Muhammad Mokaev posted that “Dana used to say best vs the best But today it is all about entertainment.” So releases happen. They just tend to flow toward fighters the company has decided it can live without, which is the opposite of the Jones situation Paul is pitching.
That’s exactly why the ask is worth making. The worst outcome of Jones requesting a release is a no. The best outcome is the heavyweight fight nobody can currently book.
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Consider The Messenger
It would be journalistic malpractice not to point out where Paul was when he typed all this. He hasn’t fought since Anthony Joshua knocked him out in December, a loss that left him with a broken jaw. He spent the weekend trading insults with Tommy Fury, the man who beat him by split decision more than three years ago, over a viral clip of Fury allegedly getting tossed from a Halloween event. Paul’s line about Fury failing to stay inside a haunted house was genuinely funny, and Fury’s reply about breaking “the other side of your jaw” was genuinely mean.
Here’s the comedy. When Fury floated a rematch, Paul answered, “Never happening. Ship has sailed.” Less than a day later, he’s begging another promotion to let a different ship leave port. I appreciate the consistency of a man who only wants the boats he isn’t on to move.
Also, check the pronouns. Paul used the word we twice in a two-sentence post about a fight he isn’t in. That pronoun is doing some serious lifting, and I’d bet my car on Paul wanting a seat at whatever table this fight ends up at. Fine. He’s a hustler, and hustlers are why half the fun fights in this sport ever get made.
Ask, Jon
I can’t stand fighters who duck, and I can’t stand companies that sit on a fight out of spite while fans keep the lights on. If Paul’s version of events is accurate, Jones would be stuck behind a door somebody else locked.
Stevenson showed the polite way out. You say it’s business, you say you’re not mad, you ask. Jones has the tag in his notifications right now. The worst they can say is no, and according to Paul, they’ve already said that to Francis.
