Former NBA player Nate Robinson will fight YouTube star Jake Paul as the undercard for the Mike Tyson-Roy Jones Jr. exhibition bout on Sep. 12.
The news was announced by The Athletic’s Shams Charania and a rep for the event confirmed the two opponents’ participation.
Former NBA guard Nate Robinson and YouTube star Jake Paul make it official: They tell me they will be fighting Sept. 12 as an undercard to Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr. in California. pic.twitter.com/ClEP64JZFp
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 23, 2020
Robinson, who was one of the league’s shortest players at 5’9″, played for 11 seasons in the NBA, most notably with the New York Knicks. Despite his small frame, he won the Slam Dunk Competition three times, the only player in the league to do so. Jake Paul is one of the most popular, and often criticized, YouTube stars.
The fight will be available on pay-per-view as well as through the multimedia platform Triller, whose users would still pay but the company has not set a price yet.
Triller has also obtained exclusive streaming rights to the soon-to-be-released, 10-part docuseries featuring behind-the-scenes, pre-fight footage, releasing two episodes per week leading up to the match. The fight, titled “Frontline Battle,” is the first event of a series produced under Mike Tyson’s Legends Only League, a sports venture owned by Tyson and Eros Innovations which has partnered with Triller on all future boxing events.
The exhibition fight has been sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission. Producers include Mike Tyson, Sophie Watts, Johnny Ryan Jr., Azim Spicer, Kiki Tyson, Ryan Kavanaugh and Bobby Sarnevesht.