Jake Paul’s newest training clip shows him working a heavy bag while a massive snake is coiled around it. Happy Punch posted the footage on X on Sunday, and it spread across fight social media within hours. Spinnin Backfist quote-tweeted it early Monday with a two-word review that boiled down to asking him why. Athlon Sports ran it under a headline saying Paul’s boxing comeback had taken a bizarre turn, which is a polite way of describing a man punching a reptile’s living room.
The best reaction came from Paulo Costa. He used the clip to settle a family score that nobody asked him to settle. Costa wrote on X that he sparred Logan Paul in boxing five years ago, insisted it wasn’t a real fight, and then asked his followers whether they think Jake is better than his brother. So the snake got a cameo and Logan got dragged, all in one post.
The clip landed during an unusually loud week for Paul, even by his standards. On Oct. 9, MMA Mania’s nightly roundup reported that Paul had laid out a hit list for the rest of his career with Canelo Alvarez, Francis Ngannou and Conor McGregor on it. Darren Till answered him on X almost immediately, telling Paul to stop talking nonsense (Till used the more colorful British word) and promising he’d flatline him inside of five.
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Then there’s Sean Strickland. The UFC middleweight champion is in a public pay dispute with the promotion over a planned title defense against Nassourdine Imavov, and on Oct. 7 he floated a move up to 205 pounds to finish out his deal and then go fight Paul. Strickland wrote on X that the idea sounded fun to him. Two days later he said he won’t fight or sign anything until his situation gets figured out. Jorge Masvidal backed Strickland and took a shot at the option itself, saying with an expletive in the middle for emphasis that boxing Jake Paul shouldn’t even be on the table.
One name on the wish list is moving further away. Sports Illustrated noted last year that Paul had called out Alex Pereira, and Pereira said in 2025 that he was definitely going to box. Now his coach Plinio Cruz says that with seven fights left on Pereira’s UFC contract at age 39, a boxing move is pretty much impossible for now. Pereira, 13-4 in MMA, meets Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335 on Dec. 12.
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Paul is also wearing his promoter hat. Most Valuable Promotions posted on X that he praised the heart Lucas Bahdi and Floyd Schofield showed in their war and wants to see the rematch down the line.
My take: I love this. I really do. Paul understands that a guy hitting a bag gets zero views and a guy hitting a bag with a giant snake on it gets Paulo Costa typing at 8 p.m. on a Sunday. That’s the job, and he’s the best in the business at it. But the hit list he just published has Canelo and Ngannou on it, and neither of those men will be rattled by wildlife. The snake buys him a news cycle. No opponent or date was attached to the clip, and until one is, Strickland’s pay fight with the UFC is the most interesting Jake Paul storyline out there, and Paul isn’t even the one driving it.
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