Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley 2 results, takeaways: Knockout punch keeps the hype train on the tracks

Saturday night’s rematch between Jake Paul and Tyron Woodley was always going to draw eyeballs. A replay of their tepid first fight, however, would have been a disaster for the Jake Paul business plan. The fight was anything but exciting for the first five rounds, then Paul changed everything with a bomb of a right hand that left Woodley unconscious on the canvas.

Paul was elated following the fight, calling out more big names and looking to build on the moment. Had that right hand not landed, the interest in Paul’s boxing career may have cratered.

Let’s take a deeper look into Paul’s career-saving punch and other takeaways from Tampa.

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The Jake Paul train keeps on rolling

Speaking honestly, there’s no way around the fact that the fight between Paul and Woodley was awful prior to the knockout. Full of fouls, clinching and very little effective punching, it was not an entertaining watch, even taken with the grain of salt with which all the celebrity crossover fights must be taken. Then, Paul dropped a right hand that erased everything that had come before and set Paul up to continue his boxing career with the kind of highlight that will keep interest high going into his next trip to the ring. After all, we live in viral times and there’s nothing as viral in sports as a vicious knockout.

Paul has obvious flaws in his game and his fight-to-fight improvement seems to have stalled out a bit. He also has pretty big issues with his cardio. When he knocks people out, he knocks them out in big ways. Just ask Nate Robinson. Or Ben Askren. And now, Tyron Woodley. Combine that…