The highly-anticipated fight between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury in the ultimate showdown between two boxing novices looking to establish their worth in the sport of boxing, has finally culminated with Tommy Fury scraping past Jake Paul with a split-decision win in a confident boxing performance. They were the main event for a fight card that was held at the Diriyah Arena in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia on Sunday, February 26th. Judges scored the fight as 76-73 twice, and 74-75 in favor of Fury.

With both fighters being relatively inexperienced and unseasoned, the match turned into less off a slugfest and more of a wrestling match as the two went at each other quite more tentatively as expected. The first couple of rounds saw Tommy Fury (9-0, 4 KO’s) take a clear lead with his jabs and his out-range boxing which prevented Jake Paul (6-1, 4 KO’s) from getting the inside the pocket, as he was normally used to.

Though incapable of dealing with Fury’s sharp jabs, Paul was able to unleash a number of power shots, some of which landed on Fury. He was however, unable to get into a proper rhythm as the two regularly clinched and Fury’s boxing fundamentals nullified most of his attacks. Though Fury clearly won the majority of rounds, Paul’s reliance on his athleticism eventually won through in the eight where he dropped Fury with just a jab. It was a flash knockdown however, and Fury recovered quickly, even pushing the pace of his own attacks with combinations that seemed to land Paul in trouble.

Paul proved to have power and toughness in his fight with Fury, but seemed to be overwhelmed by Fury’s insistence on not engaging with him on the inside, causing for a rather ugly yet competitive match that saw Fury establishing himself as a clear winner with his well-developed boxing fundamentals. The main issue that Fury seemed to be dealing with was a lack of power, but he did do a good job in not only neutralizing Jake Paul’s offensive attempts but took a lot of hard shots that he caught rather well.

Even in the eight and final round where Fury suffered the knockdown, he still retained control in the ring and seemed to push Paul back well reminiscent of the knockdown his brother Tyson Fury (33-0-1, 24 KO’s) suffered in the last round of his first fight with Deontay Wilder, to go on and arguably beat Wilder in the same round.

Amidst a high amount of tension and uncertainty following the results announcement by famous presenter Michael Buffer, it was Tommy Fury who was eventually picked as the winner by split-decision. Their match ends a quite tumultuous period of endless insults between the two that had spanned for years, to the point that Jake Paul’s older brother, Logan Paul, launched himself into an unwarranted X-rated tirade while interviewed during the fight.

While Jake Paul failed to deliver on his years-long promise to knock Tommy Fury out and end his career, he showed himself to be a decent professional boxer, having pushed himself through five years of hard training and high-stakes bouts with former MMA fighters or other celebrities to not only make enough money to co-promote his own fights and that of others – in the case of Amanda Serrano (44-2-1, 30 KO’s), but also earn relative respect in the boxing world by critics, fans and boxers alike. Though he has not proven to be impressively skilled and he still has a lot of challenges he will need to overcome in order to be even considered worthy of being a mid-tier fighter, Paul has overcome any sentiment that he is not a professional boxer with his split-decision loss to Tommy Fury.

Tommy Fury has dealt with immense pressure stemming from his background as a member of the Fury boxing family that has already seen it produce a future Hall of Famer in Tyson Fury. Tommy faces a tough road however if he intents to become a world class boxer, with his resume notably quite lacking in competition that could properly challenge him. He also lacks a significant amateur background which would normally see him face a stronger set of opponents, however, his victory over Paul shows his mental resilience to deal with pressure and high expectations, and his growth can only be determined by his own efforts to improve himself.

With his latest victory, the top 40 ranking the WBC was promised to bestow on Jake Paul will apparently now go to Tommy Fury who has earned a special non-named WBC belt to commemorate his victory over the social media star. A rematch clause was set in the contract between the two and both fighters seemed open to the idea of facing each other again in the post-match interviews and press conference.

The fight card also featured several other professional bouts which were more or less significant due to most fighters being low-ranked. There was a notable world title fight between Ilunga Makabu (29-3, 25 KO’s) and Badou Jack (28-3-3, 17 KO’s) which despite its highly-entertaining and high-stakes nature seemed to be looked over in favor of the main event between Paul and Fury.