Instagram/@jakepaul
A new promotional video has been released by Jake Paul that features him and fellow fighter Sean O’Malley in a festive atmosphere. The Instagram picture shows Paul dressed up as Santa and promoting his “Winter Winning kit” available at Walmart, thus revealing once again the entrepreneurial side of the influencer-turned-boxer.
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The video starts with Jake Paul in a completely Santa-like costume who is really loud and very excited while announcing that he is “the greatest Santa Claus of all time!” The Christmas atmosphere has him being a very noisy boy in the middle of a large pile of gifts and throwing out “W’s stock and stuff” which he is doing very noisily. The high energy lasts the whole video where Paul also in character asks for cookies by ringing out “I’m hungry boy! I’m hungry!” with UFC bantamweight Sean O’Malley in the background watching and being amused by it. The post also has a strong caption saying “Santa loves being a heavyweight” tagged along with the financial platform and merch mention being available at Walmart.
The Holiday-themed content has received mixed responses, as the comment section indicates. The great majority of the fans were very enthusiastic. For instance, one user commented “We love Jake Paul” with clapping emojis. Another one just wrote “@jakepaul number one boy” with fire emojis indicating strong fandom towards the content creator.
On the contrary, the other side of the comments dwelled more on boxing than on the festive occasion. A fan wrote “Puttin on that weight for Anthony” and added a muscle emoji pointing out Paul’s fight with Mike Tyson which has been recently postponed. The implication is that the audience prefers the boxer over the businessman.
O’Malley’s appearance in the video was another thing that attracted attention. One person said, “Sean staring at those cookies like infinity stones,” while another said, “Why sean o Maley so inactive?” referring to the UFC fighter’s schedule. A harsh comment directed at O’Malley was, “Sean why don’t we work on some takedown defense before we make garbage content for brain dead teenagers.”
People were very skeptical regarding Paul’s dressing up as Santa Claus, and one of them said, “Quit wearing that fat suits nobody’s buying it.” Another person said, “That fat suit shits gotta be a fetish bro or something,” meaning that some viewers found it difficult to understand the reason behind the costume.
The business side of the video was another point of contention. On one hand, a supporter advised: “Get those cookies and W!” with the reference being to the fintech company that was promoting itself while others were not that much impressed with the commercial aspect of the content. A viewer commented: “I swear suga doing everything but fighting,” meaning O’Malley by his nickname and that people are frustrated with his and other fighters’ business deals.
There’s also a Brazilian who is an MMA fighter and he wrote in Portuguese: “Hello everybody! This is Rodrigo The Wolf, a native of Manaus, with indigenous blood and black belt. I’m rising in MMA with the faith, hunger and the strength of a fighter born to win. One day I will write history in this sport.” The comment also had a wolf emoji as an accompaniment.
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This video still marks the success of the brand integration strategy that is consistently pursued by Paul where Christmas lights, product marketing and user engagement, through collaboration with O’Malley, are all part of it. Even when the reactions varied, the post is still a proof of Paul’s moving trend to create eye-catching content that merges entertainment, business and personalities of fighters. Jutta Leerdam, Paul’s partner, often appears in his content as well. Additionally, Paul’s mysterious octopus video previously sparked similar online speculation.