Jake Paul finally has a name for his Christmas Eve comeback, and it’s Cedric Doumbe. Most Valuable Promotions announced Monday that Paul will box the kickboxing champion in Dubai on December 24, and Sky Sports confirmed the matchup the same morning. Fox Sports ran its own breaking headline billing the bout for Christmas Day, which is probably a time zone quirk. The promotion lists it as Christmas Eve.
The pick surprises. For most of last week the reporting pointed toward Darren Till. MMA Mania called the former UFC welterweight the most likely choice, and Bloody Elbow noted that Till had said publicly he was waiting for a contract. Tommy Fury and Chris Eubank Jr. were also linked to the slot. Instead, MVP went outside boxing entirely. Sky Sports added some celebrity sizzle with a separate headline saying Doumbe had left Kylian Mbappe stunned.
This is Paul’s first fight since last December in Miami, when Anthony Joshua stopped him in the sixth round and broke his jaw. The damage was ugly. According to The Mac Life, Paul needed surgery to fit two titanium plates and had several teeth removed. He’s 12-2 as a pro, with the losses coming against Fury and Joshua. His July 2025 win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. had pushed him into the WBA cruiserweight rankings, and the Joshua result knocked him back out of them.
Paul announced the date before he had an opponent, posting on October 29 that he was “hungrier than ever” and signing off with a holiday threat: “Merry Christmas, Dubai. Santa Paul is coming to town, and somebody’s getting knocked out.” MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian said at the time that the promotion was “finalising an opponent worthy of Jake’s return.”
The Netflix question
One thing this card won’t have is a Netflix logo. Erich Richter of the New York Post reported that the streamer is passing on the event, ending a run that included Paul vs. Mike Tyson, Taylor vs. Serrano 3, Paul vs. Joshua and this year’s MVP MMA 1 headlined by Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano. MMA Mania tied the decision to a shakeup inside Netflix. CEO Ted Sarandos fired Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and film chief Dan Lin, and the outlet described Bajaria as Bidarian’s biggest ally at the company. No replacement broadcaster has been announced.
Paul is also still chasing Canelo Alvarez. After Canelo beat Christian Mbilli by unanimous decision in Riyadh on Saturday to win back the WBC super middleweight title, Paul wrote on X that Alvarez “Did take a lot of punches though,” and closed with “We will dance my friend, we will dance.”
My take: I respect this one more than the Till fight. Till would have been a familiar UFC name in a familiar Paul storyline. A kickboxing champion is a striker who has spent his career hitting people for a living. Boxing rules take his kicks away, sure, but Paul is stepping in against a pure hitter with titanium in his jaw, and that is a genuine question about his chin. Dubai finds out the answer on December 24.
