Jake Paul vs Nate Diaz: Pick, Prediction and Favorite Bets for Saturday’s Fight

Jake Paul returns to the boxing ring this weekend and will be facing another opponent with a familiar face for the MMA community: long-time UFC legend Nate Diaz. This will be the first professional boxing match of his career for Diaz, who built a reputation among MMA fans as one of the toughest guys to ever step inside the octagon. Paul will be looking to bounce back from the first loss of his career earlier this year to Tommy Fury and could make a nice statement here with an impressive win over the mixed martial arts legend.

Paul has a 6-1 record as a pro boxer with four of those wins coming via KO/TKO stoppage and has made quite a name for himself as a social media influencer-turned-boxer. Diaz will be the fourth different opponent for Paul who enters with a decorated career in mixed martial arts joining Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley (twice), and Anderson Silva. Paul has gone 4-0 in those previous matchups, with two knockouts and two decisions among the wins. He announced earlier this year that he is joining PFL under a deal that will allow him to compete in both boxing and MMA in the future, so we could see some interesting rematches down the road.

In the meantime, he’ll have his hands full on Saturday night in Dallas dealing with Diaz, who has put together a professional MMA record of 21-13 before finishing out his contract with the UFC last year and deciding to pursue his options. While Diaz appears happy to get a chance to test out his boxing acumen in this matchup against Paul, he did mention during an interview with Ariel Helwani during open workouts for the event that he is likely to return to MMA after this fight. During his time with the UFC, Diaz shared the octagon with a handful of legends in the lightweight and welterweight divisions, including splitting a pair of fights with Conor McGrego

While Paul will enter this bout with more experience inside the boxing ring than his opponent, Diaz has more than enough combat sports experience to make this an interesting fight. Paul will likely be the more technical striker in the matchup and should be able to find more success during the striking exchanges. Although Diaz has a decent amount of losses on his MMA resume, he has always been durable for the most part, with only two of those defeats coming via KO/TKO in his 34-fight career. On the flip slide, Diaz has only gone 4-10 in his MMA fights that went to decision. This will be the first time in Paul’s boxing career that he will be competing in a ten round fight, with each of his previous bouts lasting eight rounds or less.

Although Diaz will likely have some moments of success, and could even steal a round or two on the judges’ scorecards, I feel like this is largely Jake Paul’s fight to lose. Paul will have the striking advantage here and will be the younger fighter in the matchup by nearly twelve years, which should work to his benefit if this fight gets extended past the opening rounds. While sportsbooks currently have Paul favored to win via KO/TKO listed at or around -150, I have trouble seeing Paul putting Diaz away via clean knockout. While it’s tough to rule out a potential TKO stoppage if Diaz gets busted open, I think this fight ends up going to decision at a pretty solid clip with Jake Paul picking up the victory on the judges’ scorecards.