How Twitter joker started Jake Paul vs Tommy Fury feud which led to multi-million dollar fight (2024)

Jake Paul and Tommy Fury will stand across from one another in Saudi Arabia on Sunday night, ready to fight for millions of dollars.

When the first bell rings and the two novices collide to settle their feud, one unthanked man will be sat at home watching, knowing he caused all of this to happen.

That man is boxing Twitter veteran Del G (@ReallyNiceDerek).

Famed on the app for his parody posts and falsified figures, the joker has amassed a following of 7,000 questionable people.

Over the past few years, Del G successfully trolled big names in combat sports such as Tony Bellew, Paddy Pimblett and, most notably, Tyson Fury...

On February 28, 2021, he woke up and decided to spend his Sunday morning creating a list of fake boxing viewing figures out of thin air.

Tyson's brother Tommy had won a fight in London the night before, as had Canelo Alvarez in Miami.

To provoke a funny, outraged response, Del G listed Tommy's 'viewership' as 1.9million, and Canelo's as 105,000.

Proving the gullibility of some on social media, Del G has pulled stunts like this on several occasions and then sits back to watch hundreds of boxing fans arguing in his replies.

While some may argue these are simply the actions of a man who has nothing better to do with his weekend, others will insist he provides a great deal of entertainment.

In this instance though, Del G managed to successfully bait the WBC heavyweight champion of the world and instigate a multi-million dollar fight - all in a Sunday morning's work.

The following day, on Monday, March 1, Fury himself posted Del G's fake figures on his official Twitter account.

The heavyweight king tweeted: "Massive congratulations to @TommyTNTFury for smashing records on @BTSport.

"Tommy slaughtered [the] competition over the weekend! Including America’s biggest boxing star Canelo Alvarez. Wow, just wow."

Now fully believing that his brother was a major TV draw, Fury concluded his tweet by adding: "@JakePaul where you at?"

This call-out, provoked by Del G's parody post, set in motion the sequence of events that led to Jake Paul vs Tommy Fury happening on Sunday night.

A day later, on March 2, Paul hit back at Tyson's tweet with a response video in which he said: "I wake up and see Tyson Fury, the heavyweight champ, tweets me.

"I get to the bottom of the tweet and I see that he like calls me out to fight someone and the tweet's about his brother.

"I'm like, 'I didn't even know he had a brother,' and he's calling me out to fight his brother.

"I like Tyson Fury, I don't want beef with Tyson Fury, but if Tyson Fury took a s*** it would be this little brother. He's literally just like this little kid.

"But my point is - Dear Tyson Fury's little brother, if you wanna fight me don't let your big bro do s*** for you, log on to Instagram or Twitter and call me out yourself."

Tommy did exactly that.

In a video message posted to his Instagram account, Tommy fired back: "So, I see somebody's having a little bit of something to say - Mr Jake Paul.

"I don't need anybody to do my dirty work, I'm calling you out myself right now. You can fight me anytime, any place, anywhere. All you've got to do is get in touch."

From there, the back-and-forth took on a life of its own and now, after two previous failed attempts, Paul and Fury will finally fight on Sunday night.

While the pair will each earn millions of dollars for their eight-round bout, the man who instigated it will not receive a single penny.

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In fact, if he chooses to actually buy the pay-per-view, Del G will be £19.95 poorer as a result of the entire situation.

On the bright side though, his contribution to boxing will never be forgotten by those who know best and there's no doubt he'll agree that this is worth more to him than millions of dollars anyway.