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Jake Paul vs Nate Robinson: Pros react to Jake Paul’s wipeout win over the former NBA star

It wasn’t a good pro boxing debut for the former NBA standout Nate Robinson, as he was smashed by Jake Paul.

Triller Presents Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jr. Photo by Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for Triller
Scott Christ is the managing editor of Bad Left Hook and has been covering boxing for SB Nation since 2006.

Former NBA star Nate Robinson called out YouTube celebrity Jake Paul some months back for a boxing match. The 36-year-old basketball player may now wish he hadn’t, as the 23-year-old Paul smashed Robinson inside of two rounds on the Tyson-Jones undercard.

Paul, who has been training in boxing for a couple of years now, may not be the second coming of any great boxer you can name off the top of your head, or any good boxer, or any OK boxer, but he was clearly a much better boxer than Robinson, who only took up training in the last few months.

Robinson’s natural athletic gifts meant nothing in the ring, as Paul was more composed, better-schooled, and didn’t get rattled at all by Robinson’s furious, reckless charges. In fact, after tying Robinson up easily a few times, Paul checked him and dropped him with a right hand in the first round, then blasted him out with two more knockdowns in the second.

The boxing pros, of course, had their thoughts on the fight. Many are insulted by the level of attention this thing gets, some just argue that Nate Robinson with basically no training shouldn’t have been licensed to fight — which he was, this was not an “exhibition,” this was a sanctioned pro fight — and others just, y’know, whatever, man.

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