The boxing match between former ONE Championship and Bellator titleholder Ben Askren and YouTube star Jake Paul is headed to Atlanta.
Triller Fight Club on Monday announced Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta will host the April 17 pay-per-view boxing event, which will come with a $49.99 price tag.
A news release from Triller said the four-hour card will start at 8 p.m. ET, but non public tickets will be sold. Instead, Triller’s release said “a very limited number of fans and guests will be selected to join in the live event, with details to be announced in the coming weeks, and everything will be subject to stringent local, state and federal protocols due to COVID-19.”
Mercedes-Benz Stadium is the home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and played host to Super Bowl LIII in 2019. The Askren-Paul card will be the stadium’s first fighting event there.
The Askren-Paul fight is scheduled for eight rounds. Paul is 2-0 in his professional boxing career. In his debut, he beat fellow YouTuber AnEsonGib with a first-round TKO. He then had a brutal second-round knockout of former NBA standout Nate Robinson. The fight against Askren will be his first against an opponent with professional combat sports experience.
The fight will be Askren’s first pro boxing match. He has not fought since his three-fight run in the UFC ended with back-to-back losses and a subsequent retirement in November 2019. Those two losses, the only ones of his MMA career, started with a 5-second knockout setback to Jorge Masvidal, which put him on the wrong end of a likely permanent highlight reel.
In addition to the main event, former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir is scheduled to box Antonio Tarver on the undercard.
