Jake Paul should thank Canelo Alvarez for sparing him an embarrassing beating no commission should sanction

As Jake Paul’s predictable temper tantrum extended into a fifth day, someone should’ve informed him that the smarter move might’ve been to send Saul “Canelo” Alvarez a thank you note.

Alvarez’s about-face Thursday spared Paul an embarrassing beating from which a half-ruined reputation never would’ve recovered, even among millions of gullible sycophants who don’t know what they’re watching. Lost amid Alvarez accepting more money than anyone could turn down for facing Terence Crawford and likely three less imposing opponents was the dangerous reality that Paul has no business occupying a boxing ring with a four-weight world champion who remains one of the sport’s top-10 best, pound-for-pound.

The Mexican legend is 34, six years older yet innumerable skill levels above where Paul operates. This wouldn’t have been a limping 58-year-old ex-champion complicit in some scheme to dupe casuals into treating theirs as a real fight.

Canelo vs. Paul very much would’ve been everything Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul was not. The only thing that might’ve been carried — to parrot Paul’s description of how he handled an aged, injured Tyson — was Paul himself from the ring at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on a stretcher.

Make no mistake, Paul would’ve absorbed an absolute beating against Alvarez. It wouldn’t have mattered much if the infamous influencer would’ve been allowed to weigh in at the cruiserweight limit of 200 pounds, a full 25 pounds above the highest weight at which Alvarez has fought during his 19-year, 66-fight professional career.

Paul (11-1, 7 KOs) has commendably attempted to hone his craft in Puerto Rico and lived the life of a professional prizefighter. Anyone who boxes for a living deserves our respect, Paul’s level of competition notwithstanding.

No one he has encountered in 12 fights over the past five years, however, could’ve conceivably prepared Paul for what would’ve awaited him had he faced a generational great who wouldn’t have taken it easy on him, if for no other reason than to finally silence an irritating trash-talker who has been emboldened by an ill-informed fan base and highlight-reel knockouts of washed UFC fighters, a retired NBA point guard, anonymous cruiserweights with padded records, and a legendary business partner who had all of the boxing beaten out of him when he quit for the final time 19 years earlier against Kevin McBride.

More alarming is yet another money-hungry regulatory agency, the Nevada Athletic Commission, was willing to sanction a Paul mismatch, this time with the brash bad boy playing the role of an in-over-his-head underdog. That’s what made Canelo vs. Paul such an ill-conceived idea — that you don’t play boxing.

This isn’t professional wrestling, despite the best efforts of Paul and his cohorts at Most Valuable Promotions to turn it into a comparable spectacle.

There are potentially catastrophic consequences if your unquenchable quest for lining your pockets clouds your judgment. Because again, you don’t play boxing.

Ask Aidos Yerbossynuly. Or the family of Prichard Colon. Or, worse yet, the family of John Cooney, the Irish junior lightweight who died Saturday from brain injuries incurred during a ninth-round, technical-knockout defeat to Nathan Howells on Feb. 1 in Belfast.

That said, Paul has done some legitimate good during his five years in boxing. The opportunities Paul provided to seven-division women’s champion Amanda Serrano and Shadasia Green, who won the women’s WBO super middleweight title on the Paul vs. Tyson undercard, are among the accomplishments on Paul’s résumé for which he and business partner Nakisa Bidarian should be forever proud.

They obviously have great business sense, too. You don’t convince Netflix honchos who typically don’t dabble in niche sports to stream your event to nearly 300 million subscribers worldwide if your script isn’t salable to the masses.

The primary problem for Paul is he’s out of Netflix-worthy opponents now that Alvarez (62-2-2, 39 KOs) has embraced the Crawford fight and whatever else comes of the four-fight package offered by Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority. Paul could still face Alvarez eventually in 2027, but who would make sense while he waits after drawing more than 100 million viewers worldwide for his farcical fight with Tyson almost three months ago?

Conor McGregor is too small and inactive to oppose Paul. That promotion would require cooperation from UFC CEO Dana White too, which would never happen based on his disdain for Paul and MVP partner Bidarian, a former UFC employee.

A rematch with Tommy Fury would at least afford Paul the opportunity to avenge his lone loss — an eight-round split decision in February 2023. But having to fight Fury (10-0, 4 KOs) a second time would also serve as an embarrassing reminder as to why it was ludicrous to have come so close to the Alvarez fight taking place.

If not Fury, therein lies the challenge for Paul and Bidarian as they try to navigate their way through this dirty, brutal business.

They have ever-expensive egg on their faces. They’ll have to watch from afar as Alvarez whips William Scull (23-0, 9 KOs) on his way toward securing the biggest boxing match of the year with Crawford (41-0, 31 KOs) on Sept. 13 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

If they are as committed as they claim to developing prospects over the course of the next several years, though, they’ll build upon an MVP schedule that thus far includes a card on March 7 in Toronto which features a main event of hard-hitting Canadian lightweight Lucas Bahdi (18-0, 15 KOs), who captured Uncrowned’s 2024 Knockout of the Year award for his shocking upset of MVP prospect Ashton Sylve.

While Paul and Bidarian figure out which opponent to pursue next, they should learn as much as possible from what transpired this past week, when they were rather shrewdly outmaneuvered by a chess master in Alvarez. The actual story is boxing’s biggest star was going to oppose Paul until someone with immeasurably deeper pockets, Turki Alalshikh, made an offer Alvarez simply couldn’t refuse.

The Guadalajara native hadn’t signed an actual contract, which allowed Alvarez to pivot.

Alvarez will make more money for fighting Crawford than he would’ve earned for boxing Paul. The additional $200 million or so for Scull and the two fights following Crawford encouraged Alvarez to walk away from his agreement with Paul and Bidarian.

The unified super middleweight champion did the same thing in following the money by pursuing Paul after agreeing in principle to the original three-fight deal with Alalshikh and Riyadh Season in January. In other words, Paul’s issue is with Alvarez, not Alalshikh — who, as owner of The Ring magazine and website, also employs this writer — or the proven professionals in the media with whom they petulantly took issue last week because they didn’t get their way this time.

Ask Top Rank’s Bob Arum or other promoters how many times something similar has happened to them or they have done it to competitors over the past few decades.

It’s all part of this fractured free-for-all of an industry, the same fragmented mess that enabled Jake Paul to become Jake Paul. Grow from it and do better next time.

For now, we suggest putting “The Problem Child” in a timeout. It’s a safer space than where he might’ve ended up had he actually gone through with his fight against Canelo.