Jake Paul Reveals Retirement Promise Ahead of Comeback Boxing Fight vs. Cedric Doumbe After Injury

Jake Paul is pretty confident ahead of his bout with former kickboxing champion Cédric Doumbé. So confident, in fact, that he's claiming he'll retire if he loses.

"If he wins, I will hang up the gloves and call it a day," the social-media personality said in a video on his YouTube channel (h/t Brett Okamoto of ESPN). "But if he loses, the man who calls himself 'The Best' just got beat up by a YouTuber with a titanium jaw. So, Cedric Doumbe—I, Jake Joseph Paul, will knock you out, embarrass you and defeat you on Christmas Eve. This fight is not going the distance and someone is getting put to sleep in the Middle East and it's not Santa."

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Paul, 29, is 12-2 in his professional fighting career, though many of the bouts have come against celebrities, former MMA fighters and long-retired boxers like Mike Tyson.

In Paul's last fight back in December, former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua destroyed him, knocking him out in the sixth round and breaking his jaw in the process.

That left Paul to contemplate his boxing future.

"Honestly, after Joshua, part of me thought about quitting, never boxing again," he said. "He broke my jaw. I have two titanium plates in my mouth. I couldn't eat for weeks. I couldn't even talk or smile at my bank statements. I was just laying in bed night after night, asking myself, 'Do I still want to do this?' Yeah, obviously I still want to do this. I ain't no b--ch."

His next opponent, the 34-year-old Doumbé, followed up his kickboxing career (63-7-1) with a foray into the world of MMA, where he posted a 6-1 record and most recently defeated Jaleel Willis at the Bellator Champions Series 2 in May 2024. He also boxed once back in 2015, winning the fight.

Going from Joshua to Doumbé in the boxing ring is a fairly steep decline in opponent. Given Paul's brash proclamation on Tuesday, however, his detractors have suddenly become enormous Doumbé fans.