Exclusive | Jake Paul has talked to Royce Gracie family about potential MMA team-up

Jake Paul is coming to a cage near you — and he’s bringing a whole new promotion with him.Mixed martial arts is getting a major shake-up in the combat sports game with some new and familiar faces taking the plunge.When Most Valuable Promotions merged with the Professional Fighters League, many questions were answered about Jake Paul’s long-rumored venture into MMA — a sport dominated by Dana White and the UFC, though this new venture hopes to make a bit of a dent in that massive market share.Perhaps most notably, Paul does indeed plan to fight in mixed martial arts in this new promotion that will see PFL’s name evaporate beginning in 2027 and eventually be transformed into “MVP MMA.” “Yes, if he’s willing to do that,” PFL CEO John Martin told The Post when asked whether he will be willing to compete to host Paul, who has admittedly never seriously trained MMA but did wrestle in high school and is an increasingly accomplished boxer.“I think that would be fantastic.”“When [Paul] makes that decision [to fight in MMA], he is going to go all in on training,” Most Valuable Promotions co-founder Nakisa Bidarian added in the exclusive interview with The Post.

“We were talking to Royce Gracie last night about him and his family becoming a part of his jiu-jitsu training.So make no mistake, when Jake Paul decides to do something, he is fully committed, and he will be very professional in how he approaches it.”Royce Gracie, who was the winner of UFC 1, UFC 2, and UFC 4 despite being routinely outweighed by 40-plus pounds, has family all throughout the MMA world, including UFC veteran Kron Gracie.When asked what kind of opponent Paul would command for an MMA fight, Bidarian has continued to call for former UFC lightweight and welterweight contender Nate Diaz, who is a third-degree black belt under Cesar Gracie with 20 wins inside the UFC octagon.

Though Diaz is significantly older now, at 41 years old, it appears Paul thinks he can hang with a ...