Table of Contents
American YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul has pledged to sign Tijhaan Ajram, a 14-year-old national champion from the United Arab Emirates, to Most Valuable Promotions, the boxing company he co-founded.
Paul made the promise at a press conference in Dubai for an upcoming card featuring MVP fighters, after the girl's mother, Saima Ajram, asked him to help develop women's boxing in the UAE.
"100%. We gotta sign her to MVP. It's going to happen," Paul said. "Yeah, let's do it. We'll figure out the conversation and see how we can help."
No contract has been signed and no terms were disclosed. Paul said both sides would work out how the promotion could support her.
Tijhaan, who fights under the name "Tarantula," is based in Abu Dhabi and competes at featherweight, or 58 kilograms. She is unbeaten as an amateur with four wins from four bouts, one of them against an opponent billed as a Muay Thai champion. She won her bout at the 2026 UAE National Championships in the under-15 category.
Her mother said finding the right matches has been hard. "She fights a lot older than her," Saima Ajram said.
MVP's push into the Gulf
The pledge comes as Paul prepares to fight in Dubai for the first time. He is set to face French-Cameroonian fighter Cedric Doumbe there on Thursday, Dec. 24.
Paul, 29, launched Most Valuable Promotions in 2021 with Nakisa Bidarian, a former chief financial officer of UFC. The company has built much of its roster around women's boxing. It promotes Puerto Rican star Amanda Serrano and has signed several female world champions, and it has staged some of the most-watched women's fights in the sport.
Paul built his early fortune on YouTube and other social media before turning to boxing in 2020. His bouts against former UFC fighters and, in November 2024, a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, made him one of the highest-paid figures in combat sports. The Tyson fight, streamed live on Netflix, drew about 65 million concurrent streams worldwide, according to the streaming company.
He has since widened his business interests to include Betr, a sports betting and media company, and W, a men's personal care brand.
The intelligence satisfies curiosity. The paid briefings satisfy strategy.
Every Monday, Elite subscribers receive an Investor Memo breaking down the deal, the structure and the positioning behind the week's most consequential African wealth story — the kind of analysis that doesn't appear anywhere else.
Twice a month, a Wealth Intelligence brief profiles a single billionaire's holdings, cash flows and expansion pipeline in detail no public source matches.
→ Executive ($25/mo): Daily newsletter + Deep-Dive Reports
→ Elite ($75/mo): Everything above + Investor Memos + Wealth Intelligence + Quarterly Analyst Briefings
Subscribe now
