Former NBA Player Nate Robinson Wants to Fight a YouTuber in the Ring
Just like Mike Tyson’s potential comeback showed, it’s hard for a high-level athlete to shake their desire to compete. This is what’s happening with Nate Robinson, who used to play for the NBA up until the 2015 season. Rather than making an NBA comeback though, Nate Robinson actually wants to make his boxing debut against Jake Paul, an infamous YouTuber.
A look at Nate Robinson’s career
Robinson joined the NBA in 2005, and he was largely ignored since he was the 21st overall draft pick. That said, he is relatively short for the NBA, since he is 5-foot 9-inches tall. This made him one of the shortest NBA players ever, but he was still an effective point guard. He played in the NBA for about 10 years, and he played with teams such as the Knicks, the Bulls, and the Celtics.
While he didn’t win any championships, he did notably win the NBA Slam Dunk Contest three times, first in 2006, then in 2009, and finally in 2010. But, after some injuries, his career in the NBA came to an end, and he pursued basketball in smaller leagues from around the world.
Despite this downgrade from the NBA, he’s also becoming more open to participating in other sports. One of those sports is boxing, and he already has an opponent on his mind.
Nate Robinson challenges Jake Paul
As CBS Sports said, Robinson said, in a video, that he wants to fight Paul in a boxing match. The reason he said he wants to fight Paul is because Paul keeps “calling out weaker opponents to fight.” Robinson thinks that this makes Paul a bully, so naturally, he wants to teach him a lesson.
As for why Paul should fight him, Robinson said that he’s “a top-tier athlete,” and that, if Paul beats him in a boxing match, then that would be “the biggest accomplishment” in Paul’s career as a boxer and as a social media influencer. That said, Robinson also said that he’d need some training first before the two men fight.
Robinson said that, if he was trained by champions like Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather, and Terence Crawford, then Paul wouldn’t stand a chance. This was a smart thing for him to mention, since, despite being an NBA veteran, Robinson actually has less boxing experience than Paul does.
A look at Jake Paul’s boxing adventures
To be clear, Paul is a social media influencer first and foremost, and he isn’t a proven and tested athlete like Robinson is. That said, Paul has already had two somewhat professional boxing fights.
His first fight was technically an amateur fight between him and Deji Olatunji. This was a fight that happened during the KSI vs. Logan Paul card, and the idea was for Jake Paul to fight KSI’s younger brother.
While his brother, Logan, fought KSI to a draw, Jake managed to knock his opponent out in the fifth round. The second fight in Jake’s career happened right before his brother’s first professional fight, which was a rematch against KSI.
Once again, Logan couldn’t beat KSI, but Jake managed to knock out his opponent. This time, his opponent was another YouTuber who’s known as AnEsonGib.
These two successful boxing bouts show that he isn’t a slouch when it comes to boxing. That’s mostly because both he and his brother got a lot of professional boxing training in the build-up to their fights.
If Robinson could get a similar level of training, then he could probably pose a threat to Paul. That said, in all likelihood, this fight won’t happen since Paul calls the shots and he can fight whomever he wants.
