Stephen A. Smith claims Logan Paul has no business in the ring with Floyd Mayweather

ESPN pundit Stephen A. Smith had a go at the topic of the whole Floyd Mayweather vs Logan Paul thing today on First Take, and made it a point to say the obvious — that there’s no legitimate reason for Paul to be facing Mayweather in a boxing ring.

“I’m not knocking the Pauls — Jake Paul, Logan Paul — like some people have because paying attention to the world of boxing, promoters have been controlling the sport for far too long,” Smith said. “And when you have promoters controlling the sport, not giving you the fights you want to see, the fact that a guy like Jake Paul has about 14.8M Instagram followers, I have to pay attention to that.

“The flip side is I feel sorry for the boxers because you’ve got legitimate professional boxers out there — I’m not saying Jake Paul and Logan Paul don’t put in the work, please don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that they do and I’m sure they work very hard at it from what I’m told. Matter of fact, they’re getting trained by professionals and stuff like that...but if you’re Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather, why?

“And when you talk about an exhibition against Conor McGregor, that’s different. He was the biggest star in the UFC, you were the biggest star in boxing. He talked a lot of trash and wanted it and all of that stuff, and it was incredibly, incredibly entertaining even though we all knew that Conor McGregor wasn’t a boxer per se...I’m just looking at Floyd and I’m like, you know, he’s gonna toy with this guy, etc.

“I just don’t believe that people who don’t have a resume per se...I don’t think someone like that should be in the ring with Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather, one of the greatest — if not the greatest — we have ever seen. It should be a privilege to be in the ring with Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather.”