Jake Paul countersues Eddie Hearn, Matchroom Boxing in response to defamation lawsuit
Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
Jake Paul is fighting back.
The social influencer turned boxer has answered a lawsuit filed against him by Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing with a countersuit seeking punitive and compensatory damages along with legal fees. Paul filed the lawsuit through his attorneys in paperwork filed in the southern district of New York on Tuesday.
The original lawsuit filed by Hearn and his promotional company alleged that Paul made defamatory statements that Matchroom Boxing “bribed” Glenn Feldman — a boxing judge — “to influence the outcome of two boxing matches that he refereed.”
The boxing matches in question were the Katie Taylor vs. Amanda Serrano fight and a matchup between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua. Paul’s company Most Valuable Promotion represents Serrano while Hearn represents Taylor.
In his countersuit, Paul denied many of the allegations in the complaint filed against him while laying out his defense to those claims.
He then detailed his cause for the countersuit against Hearn and Matchroom Boxing while claiming that the original lawsuit filed was an “intimidation tactic to chill Jake Paul’s freedom of speech and to silence other critics of the boxing industry.”
Paul is seeking “reimbursement of his attorneys’ fees, compensatory damages, and punitive damages designed to prevent Matchroom from further using expensive and time-consuming litigation to stifle the free speech of journalists, media organizations, and anyone else speaking on issues of public interest.”
In the original interview, Paul called foul on Feldman for scorecards he delivered in the Serrano vs. Taylor fight as well as Usyk vs. Joshua.
“Clearly [Glenn Feldman] is getting paid money by Matchroom Boxing,” Paul said referencing Hearn’s promotion that reps both Taylor and Joshua. “It’s just so blatantly obvious and they’re not even trying to hide it.”
Hearn and Matchroom filed the lawsuit against Paul with Feldman actually joining as a co-plaintiff.
Paul had previously filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was denied, and a pre-trial conference was set for Oct. 16.
Now Paul is actually countersuing along with a request to have the original lawsuit dismissed without prejudice.
