Jake Paul Has Message For Oleksandr Usyk After Contentious TKO Win

As YouTube star turned boxer Jake Paul mulls who to fight in the ring next, he seems ready for a war of words with world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk following Usyk's highly controversial win over Rico Verhoeven today.

Usyk secured a TKO stoppage win over Verhoeven with just two seconds left in the 11th round of a fight most fans believe he was losing decisively. Many fans believe that if the referee hadn't stopped the fight, Verhoeven would have escaped with the win and ended Usyk's unbeaten streak.

Nevertheless, Usyk was proud to take to Instagram after his big win and declare that he got the "KO," which didn't sit well with Paul.

"KO. Job done. Thank God for everything."

Paul went into the comments and admonished Usyk for celebrating, calling it "embarrassing" that he's choosing to claim victory. "Usyk I love you but you should never feel like you won this fight. Embarrassing."

Paul had far more to say on his own X page, declaring that Usyk straight up lost and that Verhoeven should be acknowledged as the better fighter.

"Nah can't get away from this but usyk is the best of our generation and rico just worked him every round so is rico the best of our generation?" he wrote.

"I truly love boxing and what happened tonight seriously makes me sad. The sport and the fans deserve better."

'Embarrassing'

Of course, many boxing fans would argue that Paul has the market cornered on being an embarrassment in boxing.

But in this case, fans are just too upset at the state of boxing to really give him too much grief over it.

For all of Paul's bragging online, he at least gets the fighters into the ring and goes in there himself. Mind you, it's rarely against top-10 contenders in any particular weight class and it's mostly against guys who are former stars in other combat sports or fighters who are long past their prime.

In December he got knocked out by Anthony Joshua and he's been teasing for a while that he wants to fight Francis Ngannou.

Maybe he'll make room for Usyk on his busy schedule someday.

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This story was originally published May 23, 2026 at 10:49 PM.