If Jake Paul's decision win over Julio César Chávez Jr. added a win to his ten round decision victory, and an additional winless fight for Paul, his 12-1 record was not what had Paul firing haymakers. No, it was the after fight backlash - not the punches - that didn't please the YouTuber-turned-boxer, and brought the boxing rhetoric; “Expect to be served, you pigs,” on X in response to TV host Piers Morgan’s damaging statement that the fight was a “staged farce” killing boxing. Paul's manager Nakisa Bidarian also jumped on the defamation pile-on, declaring any talk of rigging the fight was "baseless and defamatory", while also insisting on protecting Paul's reputation, and promising to pursue all legal options "against anybody that makes that claim again."
Watch Paul vs. Chavez Jr. highlights: Watch
Under California law, defaming a public figure requires an extremely high burden: Paul must show the defamatory statements were factual assertions, demonstrably false, published, and made with “actual malice”. This means Paul must demonstrate that the critics knew or willfully ignored that what they were claiming was false. In practice, courts protect opinions as speech, and legal victories in defamation trials are rare; nevertheless, even smaller outlets responsible for any negative statements could be hit with heavy legal costs simply by having to respond to subpoenas.
Paul opened the floodgates after a full week of their testy hurling back and forth. Paul no-showed/abruptly exited from Piers Morgan Uncensored calling Morgan a “fat a\.” Morgan tweeted that he “fought Paul harder in the broadcast then Chávez Jr.” and by the reaction of podcasters and bloggers calling the Saturday ten-rounder “boring” or “rigged,” they wonder if they will be getting cease-and-desist letters next.
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