FORTH WORTH, Texas — As a prize fight champion, Olympic gold medalist and now successful boxing promoter, Oscar De La Hoya should be the last person on earth who supports Jake Paul.

The YouTuber-turned-boxer has been accused by a lot of people of damaging the sport by staging fights that are more bit than boxing. Paul’s fights against older guys, such as Mike Tyson, or semi-retired MMA fighters, like Anderson Silva, generated attention and sold tickets and pay-per-view buys.

The Paul fights typically feature an assortment of modifications to the traditional rules of boxing, and yet they produce the attention, and money, promoters like De La Hoya want for their fights.

Whatever you think of the Paul fights, or their imitators, they have an audience. People will watch famous people eat a bowl of cereal, dance, lip-synch, do Navy SEAL training, or box.

Rather than decry, or denounce, this reality, De La Hoya embraces it for the sake of a sport that gave him his life.

“I’m not against it. I think I’m for it, because it’s eyeballs,” De La Hoya told the Star-Telegram this week. “If you’re attracting the younger generation, young kids are now coming up to me and going to the gyms, and kids that had no idea what boxing was are now practicing the sport. Are now buying boxing gloves and wanting to be like, you know, Vergil Ortiz or Jake Paul, so it’s great for boxing. It’s great for the sport overall.”

Grand Prairie’s Ortiz fighting in Fort Worth

De La Hoya will be in Fort Worth to promote Grand Prairie’s Vergil Ortiz’s fight against Erickson Lubin on Saturday at Dickies Arena. Ortiz is the interim WBC junior middleweight (154-pound) champion.

A lot more people know Jake Paul than they do Vergil Ortiz, who is 23-0 with 21 KOs, and could likely hammer Paul through the mat if they ever fought. They won’t. Paul is too smart to fight Vergil Ortiz.

Ortiz has a chance to fill the void at the top of the sport now that Terence “Bud” Crawford is at the end, and Canelo Alvarez is close. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are done, even if the latter continues to hang on well into his 40s.

Ryan Garcia should be near the top of this list, but there are “issues.”

That Jake Paul has entered the conversation as a famous boxer infuriates purists, even if he has repeatedly demonstrated he can box. Because he’s not boxing boxers in their prime.

He’s boxing former, older MMA fighters under modified rules. Or, he’s fighting older boxers, like Tyson.

Paul’s latest “attempt” to fight a boxer in his prime fell through. He was scheduled to fight Gervonta Davis on Nov. 14 in Miami, to be broadcast by Netflix, but it was canceled by the streaming platform. Why it was axed is a point of speculation, ranging from poor ticket sales, to Paul bailing because he realized he was going to lose, to something Davis did away from boxing.

There is also the possibility that the Jake Paul fight has jumped the shark, too.

Educating fans about real boxing vs. Jake Paul

A Jake Paul event is boxing; the man has trained, and learned how to fight. Also, a Jake Paul event is not the boxing like what Ortiz and Lubin will do Saturday night.

“It’s important to educate the casual fan who’s interested in boxing, to educate them and make sure they know that exhibitions like, Jake Paul versus Silva, it’s an exhibition. It’s entertainment. That’s all it is. It’s not a real fight,” De La Hoya said.

“Education is going to be key here to make sure that the casual fan knows how to separate [the two].”

Does the consumer care?

Does the consumer care that a “real fight” typically is 10 or 12 three-minute rounds, rather than eight-two minute frames, as Paul did for his bout against Tyson?

Does the consumer care that in a “real fight” the fighter wears 10-ounce gloves, rather than the 14-ounce gloves Paul and Tyson wore?

Of Paul’s fights so far, his scheduled bout with Davis would have been the closest one to a “real fight.” Davis, 31, is in his prime, and has a record of 30-0-1.

For the people who would have watched, it would be mostly in anticipation that Paul would have been crushed by one of the most talented fighters in the sport.

Instead, that fight is scrapped, but Paul remains in the ring having created a genre of boxing that while it irritates the purists, the promoters welcome it.

As Oscar De La Hoya said, it’s eyeballs.

Vergil Ortiz (23-0, 21 KOs) vs. Erickson Lubin (27-2, 18 KOs)

What’s at stake: Ortiz’s WBC interim junior middleweight title

When: Preliminary bouts start at 4:30 p.m. Saturday; main event around 10:30 p.m.

Where: Dickies Arena, Fort Worth

Tickets: Available on Ticketmaster

How to watch: DAZN pay-per-view

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