One Saturday Night Live performer unlikely to be invited backstage for Friday night’s fight between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson is Pete Davidson. Playing Paul on SNL in October 2021, Davidson mocked the YouTuber-turned-boxer’s pattern of going after fighters long past their prime by calling out one of the most legendary boxers of all time: Muhammad Ali. Who died in 2016.
With host Jason Sudeikis as a male-oriented version of Ellen DeGeneres, “Mellen,” Sudeikis asked Davidson’s Paul to announce his next fight.
Wearing chains and a fake scruffy beard, the show’s Paul made his callout. “Yo Muhammad Ali, I’m coming for you—in the ring, in the street–“
Mellen goes to interrupt by pointing out Ali’s death, but Davidson continues, “–in the graveyard. You can’t hide from me forever, Ali. And it’s in the contract: if I win, you have to change your name back to Cassius Clay.”
What many viewers may not have known is that the impression was spun out of a personal feud between Davidson and Paul, dating back to the SNL cast member’s role on the commentary team for an April 2021 Paul fight. He was personally chosen for the gig by Paul himself, but it turned out that Davidson wasn’t a fan and came ready to mock the very idea of Paul as a fighter.
Davidson went backstage for an interview that began cordially enough, but the comedian quickly shifted to compare Paul to Charlie Sheen’s infamous run manically yelling “winning” and asked about sexual assault allegations against Paul. After a beat, Paul laughed and said, “Bro, you can’t joke around about that.”
The exchange became more awkward as Davidson briefly pulled back, then explained that he’d lost a lot of money betting against Paul in another fight.
When he interviewed Paul’s opponent Ben Askren, the comic plainly laid out that he wanted Askren to win because, well, everyone hates Jake Paul.
“Nobody wants to see Jake Paul win!” Davidson exclaimed. “You have to understand, I’m hosting. I have to be nice in there. He has eight dudes standing around him with literally nothing to lose.”
When asked by Askren if the reason he hated Paul was “just because he’s a douche,” Davidson added, “I mean, he’s not a good person. He clearly is not a good influence on any of the youth culture. He kind of has this whole following so he thinks he can kind of do whatever he wants. And didn’t he get busted by the feds with AKs and a bunch of machine guns? Like, why isn’t he in jail?”
Askren agreed that Paul had, in fact, broken the law many times.
Davidson later added of Paul, “Real celebrities don’t like him. This is a whole circus of a joke.” The SNL alum closed with one last slam, saying that the message Askren and him had for kids was that Paul “is a piece of sh*t.”
Appearing on his brother Logan’s talk show “Impaulsive,” Jake Paul said that it had been his idea to have Davidson host that fight before adding, “He won’t ever be a part of one of those ever again. He f*cked this sh*t up, bro.” He expressed his frustration with the fact that his own anger against Davidson and publicly feuding with him would increase the actor’s profile, but concluded, “just… f*ck that guy.”
You can watch Pete Davidson as Jake Paul in the video at the top of this story. You can see Paul take on Mike Tyson live on Netflix, with a card starting at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific.
