“My body just wouldn’t let me do it,” Rahman Jr. said in an Instagram post hours after news broke that Saturday’s entire event at Madison Square Garden was off. “He wouldn’t let me go down to 200lbs, but where in boxing do you see them canceling fights a whole week in advance? I didn’t even get to go down as low as I could in my last week. I said to this man: “If there are penalties, keep the wallet. Keep the wallet. I would fight you for the minimum amount of $5,000.” That’s what it means to me and that’s how much faith I have in knocking him out.” Rahman Jr. detailed his side of the story after Paul and Most Valuable Promotions went public with a press release and a pair of videos pointing to him as the reason for the cancellation. Rahman Jr said that while he asked for more weight allowance, Paul and his team set him up to fail – and then refused any kind of conception supplement. Rahman Jr. finds this hypocritical. Paul said in the pre-fight build-up that he thoroughly beat Rahman when the two trained together – a time when Rahman Jr. it was about 230 kilos. “Let him say it, he already beat my ass in the gym when I was 230,” Rahman Jr. said. “So if you beat me when I was 230, what’s the problem with fighting me when I’m 215. What’s the problem with you fighting me at 210? It’s clear they don’t want to fight. I’m not the one getting out of the fight. They don’t want the fight. I never said I didn’t want this fight. All I can conclude is that they are afraid. They tried to pull me down.” According to Rahman Jr., the team even offered him a replacement to fight Paul on Saturday – someone more physical, Muhsin Cason. They were still denied. “(He) could have saved the show,” Rahman Jr. said. “Jake Paul could have fought a real boxer, but he doesn’t want to fight a real fighter. He doesn’t want to put up a real fight. He wanted to drain me and fight a shell of me, which I’m not going to let him do. Now, they didn’t move the goalposts and get closer to the finish line and make me weigh in all those extra days early and then pull the plug on the race like, “We don’t want to fight.” “My team 100 percent still wanted to fight, still ready, willing and able to hit Jake Paul on August 6th. So you blame your boy Jake Paul for this fight not happening. It has nothing to do with me or my team. We let them know what the real reason was and Jake Paul is afraid to fight.” See Rahman Jr.’s full statement. below:
