Jake Paul breaks unwritten rule ahead of Mike Tyson boxing fight

Jake Paul broke an unwritten rule of boxing by posting a video of himself knocking down a sparring partner.

Paul is preparing for his controversial fight with Mike Tyson which is scheduled to take place in Texas in just under four weeks' time. The bout was initially due to be held in July but Tyson was forced to pull out when he suffered an inflamed ulcer and was ordered to rest.

The former undisputed heavyweight world champion has resumed training but has not posted any video footage of his sessions since returning to the gym. But Paul has regularly kept his fans updated and posted a video to his social media account this week of him dropping sparring partner DeAndre Savage.

Heavyweight Savage has won six of his eight professional fights, stopping each of his opponents in the process. His other two bouts were ruled no-contests, one due to an injury to his opponent and the other following an accidental blow saw his most recent outing stopped prematurely.

But in posting the video, Paul has ignored boxing's code which is generally accepted to rule that what happens in sparring remains in the gym. In 2016, Chris Eubank Jr was criticised by upcoming opponent Nick Blackwell for posting a video showing the son of a legend knocking out one of his sparring partners.

"He put a video up on social media, for the whole world to see, of him knocking out a kid who hasn't even had a pro fight and it's disgusting," said Blackwell. "The amateur kid is building his confidence and trying to learn from a so-called professional, but somehow Eubank Jr takes pride in exploiting him like that.

"I've put more than one world champion down in the gym over the years but I don't go around bragging about it. And the idea of filming it and putting up a clip on social media is just embarrassing. I think Eubank Jr is so disrespectful. He should be ashamed of himself. But this is the sort of thing the Eubanks do. They like to be controversial, they like to get people talking, and they don't care what anyone thinks of them. They've also got nobody around them brave enough to pull them up on any of it."

Boxing fans were less than impressed with Paul's video, with one saying: "That was a horrible sparring partner" while another added: "He's in for a rude awakening if he's comparing that dude to Tyson".

Another fan commented: "Big Mike going to take bro's head off his shoulders" while another one was equally withering, adding: "That dude had zero head movement, one of mikes best attributes."