‘UFC is dying' – Jake Paul brutally renews war of words with Dana White as UFC 317 and Chavez Jr fight go toe-to-toe
JAKE PAUL has claimed the UFC is "DYING" in a brutal blast at Dana White following the promoter's latest comments about him.
Veteran promoter White inadvertently renewed his war of words with Paul last week when he claimed he didn't know the YouTuber-turned-boxer would be back in action this weekend.
3
3
Ex-Disney star Paul will throw down with former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr early on Sunday morning at the same time the UFC hosts its annual International Fight Week card in Las Vegas.
And Paul has responded to White in blistering fashion, saying: "[The] UFC is dying'
'They don't have any current stars, they have skilful fighters, but it's all boring wrestling.
"Where the Dagestani fighters are winning everything by taking everyone to the ground."
Paul, who hasn't shied away from taking shots at White down the years, is adamant the MMA mogul was fully aware of his upcoming fight.
'He can say whatever he wants, but you told him about the fight, right?" he continued. "So now he knows.
"That's what press and media is. We're selling the pay-per-views.
"So maybe people don't know about it today or tomorrow, but on Saturday they're all going to know.'
JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS
3
Paul's clash with Chavez Jr is - on paper - the biggest of his five-year-long professional boxing career.
And he's vowed to add the son of Mexican boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez Sr to his list of knockout victims.
He roared at his open workout: "I, Jake Joseph Paul, will knock out Julio Cesar Chavez Saturday, June 28."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
ESPN analyst accused of mocking colleague's weight with savage on-air comment
ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum has found himself in hot water after seemingly mocking colleague Brian Windhorst about his weight while on-air. The incident occurred during Friday's broadcast of 'Get Up', where ESPN's team of analysts sit down to discuss the latest news from across the sport world. However, during the segment, Tannenbaum appeared to take an unnecessary swipe at his colleague, which lefts fans confused. The panel were discussing Aaron Rodgers and whether he could deliver a first playoff win for the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2016. Tannenbaum was asked whether he was 'convinced' over Rodgers, to which he replied: 'No! I'm more convinced that Windy [Windhorst] is in the cafeteria!'. His fellow panelists attempted to laugh off the comment, with Dan Graziano swiftly interjecting: 'No idea where Windy is'. did Mike Tannenbaum just make fun of Brian Windhorst's weight on national TV? — Eric Italiano (@eric_ital) June 27, 2025 The clip emerged on social media the following day after one user posted it with the caption: 'Did Mike Tannenbaum just make fun of Brian Windhorst's weight on national TV?' Tannenbaum - who was previously the general manager and senior VP of football operations for the New York Jets - has been part of ESPN's analyst team since 2019. Prior to those roles, he was also the executive vice president of operations for the Miami Dolphins for three years. It comes as the latest blunder on ESPN's broadcasts after a hilarious slip of the tongue saw Fox Sports host Colin Cowherd accidentally announced as a pick during this week's NBA Draft. With the 11th pick on Wednesday night, the Portland Trail Blazers selected Cedric Coward from Washington State. But as cameras cut to the 21-year-old celebrating with his loved ones, ESPN anchor Malika Andrews announced that Portland had picked 'Colin Cowherd'. 'This is a young man with the ultimate bet-on-yourself story,' Andrews continued. Alas, Colin Cowherd is a 61-year-old sportscaster with Fox Sports who hosts 'The Herd'. He made light of ESPN's error on social media. 'Apparently, I made a hell of an impact in Portland,' Cowherd wrote.
The Independent
37 minutes ago
- The Independent
David Koepp is Hollywood's go-to scribe. He's back with a fresh start for 'Jurassic World Rebirth'
EXT JUNGLE NIGHT An eyeball, big, yellowish, distinctly inhuman, stares raptly between wooden slats, part of a large crate. The eye darts from side to side quickly, alert as hell. So begins David Koepp's script to 1993's 'Jurassic Park.' Like much of Koepp's writing, it's crisply terse and intensely visual. It doesn't tell the director (in this case Steven Spielberg) where to put the camera, but it nearly does. 'I asked Steven before we started: What are the limitations about what I can write?' Koepp recalls. 'CGI hadn't really been invented yet. He said: 'Only your imagination.'' Yet in the 32 years since penning the adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel, Koepp has established himself as one of Hollywood's top screenwriters not through the boundlessness of his imagination but by his expertise in limiting it. Koepp is the master of the 'bottle' movie — films hemmed in by a single location or condensed timed frame. From David Fincher's 'Panic Room' (2002) to Steven Soderbergh's 'Presence' (2025), he excels at corralling stories into uncluttered, headlong movie narratives. Koepp can write anything — as long as there are parameters. 'The great film scholar and historian David Bordwell and I were talking about that concept once and he said, 'Because the world is too big?' I said, 'That's it, exactly,'' Koepp says. 'The world is too big. If I can put the camera anywhere I want, if anybody on the entire planet can appear in this film, if it can last 130 years, how do I even begin? It makes me want to take a nap. "So I've always looked for bottles in which to put the delicious wine.' Reining in 'Jurassic World' By some measure, the world of 'Jurassic World' got too big. In the last entry, 2022's not particularly well received 'Jurassic World: Dominion,' the dinosaurs had spread across the planet. 'I don't know where else to go with that,' Koepp says. Koepp, a 62-year-old native of Pewaukee, Wisconsin, hadn't written a 'Jurassic' movie since the second one, 1997's 'The Lost World.' Back then, Brian De Palma, whom Koepp worked with on 'Carlito's Way' and 'Mission: Impossible,' took to calling him 'dinosaur boy.' Koepp soon after moved onto other challenges. But when Spielberg called him up a few years ago and asked, 'Do you have one more in you?' Koepp had one request: 'Can we start over?' 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' which opens in theaters July 2, is a fresh start for one of Hollywood's biggest multi-billion-dollar franchises. It's a new cast of characters (Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey co-star), a new director (Gareth Edwards) and a new storyline. But just as they were 32 years ago, the dinosaurs are again Koepp's to play with. 'The first page reassured me,' says Edwards. 'It said: 'Written by David Koepp.'' For many moviegoers, that opening credit has been a signal that what follows is likely to be smartly scripted, brightly paced and neatly situated. His script to Ron Howard's 1994 news drama 'The Paper' took place over 24 hours. 'Secret Window' (2004) was set in an upstate New York cabin. Even bigger scale films like 'War of the Worlds' favor the fate of one family over global calamity. 'I hear those ideas and I get excited. OK, now I'm constrained,' says Koepp. 'A structural or aesthetic constraint is like the Hayes Code. They had to come up with many other interesting ways to imply those people had sex, and that made for some really interesting storytelling.' The two Stevens Koepp's bottles can fit either summer spectacles or low-budget indies. 'Jurassic World Rebirth' is the third film penned by Koepp just this year, following a nifty pair of thrillers with Steven Soderbergh in 'Presence' and 'Black Bag.' 'Presence,' like 'Panic Room,' stays within a family home, and it's seen entirely from the perspective of a ghost. 'Black Bag' deliciously combines marital drama with spy movie, organized around a dinner party and a polygraph test. Those films completed a zippy trilogy with Soderbergh, beginning with 2022's blistering pandemic-set 'Kimi.' Much of Koepp's career, particularly recently, run through the two Stevens: Soderbergh and Spielberg. 'What they have in common is they both would have absolutely killed it in the 1940s,' Koepp says. 'In the studio system in the 1940s, if Jack Warner said 'I'm putting you on the Wally Beery wrestling picture.' Either one of them would have said, 'Great, here's what I'm going to do.' They both share that sensibility of: How do we get this done?" Spielberg and Koepp recently wrapped production on Spielberg's untitled new science fiction film, said to be especially meaningful to Spielberg. He gave a 50-page treatment to Koepp to turn into a script. "It's even more focused than I've ever seen him on a movie,' says Koepp. 'There would be times — we'd be in different time zones – I'd wake up and there were 35 texts, and this went on for about a year. He's as locked in on that movie as I've ever seen him, and he's a guy who locks in.' 'Your own ChatGPT' For 'Jurassic World Rebirth,' Koepp wanted to reorder the franchise. Inspired by Chuck Jones' 'commandments' for the Road Runner cartoons (the Road Runner only says 'meep meep"; all products are from the ACME Corporation, etc.), Koepp put down nine governing principles for the 'Jurassic' franchise. They included things like 'humor is oxygen' and that the dinosaurs are animals, not monsters. A key to 'Rebirth' was geographically herding the dinosaurs. In the new movie, they've clustered around the equator, drawn to the tropical environment. Like 'Jurassic Park,' the action takes place primarily on an island. Going into the project, Edwards was warned about his screenwriter's convictions. 'At the end of my meeting with Spielberg, he just smiled and said, 'That's great. If you think we were difficult, wait until you meet David Koepp,'' says Edwards, laughing. But Edwards and Koepp quickly bonded over similar tastes in movies, like the original 'King Kong,' a poster of which hangs in Koepp's office. On set, Edwards would sometimes find the need for 30 seconds of new dialogue. 'Within like a minute, I'd get this perfectly written 30 second interaction that was on theme, funny, had a reversal in it — perfect," says Edwards. 'It was like having your own ChatGPT but actually really good at writing.' 'Everyone's got a note' In the summer, especially, it's common to see a long list of names under the screenplay. Blockbuster-making is, increasingly, done by committee. The stakes are too high, the thinking goes, to leave it to one writer. But 'Jurassic World Rebirth' bears just Koepp's credit. 'There's an old saying: 'No one of us is as dumb as all of us,'' Koepp says. 'When you have eight or 10 people who have significant input into the script, the odds are stacked enormously against you. You're trying to please a lot of different people, and it often doesn't go well.' The only time that worked, in Koepp's experience, was Sam Raimi's 2002 'Spider-Man.' 'I was also hired and fired three times on that movie,' he says, "so maybe they knew what they were doing.' Koepp, though, prefers to — after research and outlining — let a movie topple out of his mind as rapidly as possible. 'I like to gun it out and clean up the mess later,' he says. But the string of 'Presence,' 'Black Bag' and 'Jurassic World Rebirth' may have tested even Koepp's prodigious output. The intense period of writing, which fell before, during and after the writers strike, he says, meant five months without a day off. 'I might have broke something,' he says, shaking his head. Still, the three films also show a veteran screenwriter working in high gear, judiciously meting out details and keeping dinosaurs, ghosts and spies hurtling forward. Anything like a perfect script — for Koepp, that's 'Rosemary's Baby' or 'Jaws' — remains elusive. But even when you come close, there are always critics. 'After the first 'Jurassic' movie, a fifth-grade class all wrote letters to me, which was very nice,' Koepp recalls. 'Then they wrote, 'PS, when you do the next one, don't have it take so long to get to the island.' Everyone's got a note!''
Daily Mail
39 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Darts fever takes over America as Luke Littler and the world's best bring the party to New York City
One of Europe's rowdiest sporting events is back on American soil this weekend as New York City gears up for its latest edition of the increasingly-popular US Darts Masters. The best players on the planet, including teenage world champion Luke Littler, will descend on The Theater at Madison Square Garden this Friday and Saturday as fans across the pond get a taste of the madness for a fourth straight year in the Big Apple. For a sport once mocked as nothing more than a pub game, largely due to the fact you need virtually no form of athleticism to be good at it, darts is vastly becoming a phenomenon across the world both as a party to enjoy and a spectacle to behold. While the occasion itself has been a popular tradition in Europe for decades, with fans pulling on fancy dress costumes, swigging beers and chanting the night away regardless of what's happening on stage, the sport is growing in popularity Stateside as more and more American supporters continue to fall in love with it. The 2023 PDC World Darts Championship final, where British star Michael Smith's memorable nine-darter against Dutch icon Michael Van Gerwen and the legendary commentary which accompanied it went viral on social media, is one reason for the game's rapid rise in the US. Yet in Littler, who captured the world title at just 17 years of age back in January, darts may have finally stumbled upon its first true global superstar. The English hero, who turned 18 a few weeks after his remarkable triumph, has emerged as one of the world's top players and an online sensation in an astonishingly short space of time, having only played at the PDC World Championship for the first time a year earlier. At the time of writing, he has amassed close to two million Instagram followers and built a net worth in excess of $2million. Not to mention the small matter of receiving an MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) earlier this month. After being knocked out in the semifinals last year by Welsh star Gerwyn Price, this time around Little will be hoping to go two steps further in New York and win the US Masters, but first he'll have to get past Dutch-born American player Jules van Dongen in the first round on Friday. When asked by the Daily Mail who he considers his biggest threat this weekend, Littler admitted: 'Not too sure, I don't know who's playing well [in practice] and who's playing bad. 'Obviously for myself in the first round, Jules van Dongen... he's not playing the best of darts, he's been injured for quite a few months now. 'But yeah, I've just got to win that first game and see who I have to play on Saturday.' Littler is heading into the tournament at Madison Square Garden on the back of a rare humbling, having recently slumped to a shock defeat at the World Cup with English teammate and current world No. 1 Luke Humphries. The pair were overwhelming favorites to get past Germany in their opening match of the tournament, only to be sent packing after an 8-4 loss away from home in Frankfurt. The two Lukes were subjected to harsh criticism on the back of the upset, with English icon Dennis Priestley sparking controversy by claiming Littler is undeserving of his MBE. Yet he quickly hit back at Priestley on social media by writing: 'Don't deserve an MBE but done more in 12 months than he ever did… that's what I would say anyway.' On the eve of his first-round match in New York, Littler said about the backlash: 'I think everyone's overreacted, it's just a darts game that we've lost. 'We're not gonna win them all, so we've lost and we've got on with it. Then obviously we've replied to whatever nonsense has been said as we should, we're not gonna hold back. 'I do think everyone has overreacted to a game of darts.' Littler will be one of the favorites to go all the way and claim victory at Madison Square Garden despite that crushing setback in Frankfurt. Aside from the darts, though, he's been blown away by some of the cuisine on offer in the Big Apple. 'These Americans, the portions they do... Silly, silly,' he gushed. One of Littler's biggest threats this weekend will be Van Gerwen, who is widely considered one of the greatest players in history. The 36-year-old ranks second behind only Phil Taylor, universally regarded as the GOAT of the sport, when it comes to major PDC titles with a whopping 47. While he's 32 behind Taylor, Van Gerwen sits a comfortable 36 championships ahead of Britain's James Wade in third. Maybe one day he'll have Littler to worry about in the all-time standings, with the young world champ destined to carve out a historic career of his own if he continues sweeping up victories at this current rate. However, earlier this year Luke drew some criticism from his older peer over his professionalism, when Van Gerwen berated others in the sport for 'treating him like a baby' despite now being 18. 'I still stand by that,' MVG told the Daily Mail a couple of days out from his own first-round match at the US Masters. There is no bad blood between the pair, with 'Mighty' Mike viewing his brutal assessment simply as some necessary words of wisdom. 'We get along fine, but with all due respect I'm old enough to be his dad,' he joked. 'I watch NATO coming to Holland and he's watching the new FIFA game or whatever, so that's the difference.' Van Gerwen is returning to darts following a month-long break after dealing with a difficult moment in his personal life, having recently split from the mother of his two children. 'Everyone knows it's been hard for me, but more important is that you have to move forward,' the darts great admitted. Fresh and with his mind now cleared, he is looking to get back to his best after a difficult start to 2025, which also included a thrashing at the hands of Littler in the World Championship final. Though it's not only Luke 'The Nuke' who could pose him problems in New York. 'Stephen Bunting is doing well lately too, he's done really well in the last few tournaments,' Van Gerwen pointed out when asked to analyze the opposition this weekend. 'Everyone in this tournament is a great darts player, so you've got to make sure you don't make mistakes against any of them. Even against the Americans, because they can play well.' The aforementioned Stephen Bunting, a 40-year-old veteran from Liverpool, appears to be in his peak years after making it to two PDC World Championship semifinals in the last five and earning his first callup to the Premier League for a decade in 2025. Along with his fine form, Bunting has become a cult hero in recent years largely due to his much-loved walkout song: Titanium by David Guetta. His crowd-lifting routine, which sees him walk onto the stage and cup his ears to the crowd while singing along, has gone viral on Twitter (now X) and TikTok at recent championships, turning him into an unlikely online star. 'The walk-on has become so integral now as part of the whole routine. I probably get more nervous doing the walk-on than I do playing,' Bunting said on Thursday. 'But I really enjoy it, the fans get involved and that's where you get your fanbase from. You feel a bit like an orchestrator getting them to sing that song back to you, so it's a special feeling when you're up on the stage.' As for the honor of playing in such iconic surroundings this weekend, he added: 'It's a lovely city, I've been round and seen a few sights. But I think it'll all get real when we step into Madison Square Garden, a venue I've watched on the TV over the years. 'Some massive sporting events have been there and for me to be able to play there is a huge honor.' Luke Littler, Michael Van Gerwen and Stephen Bunting were speaking to on behalf of bet365, the official sponsor of the PDC US Darts Masters.
