Jake Paul eager to win over boxing's hardcore fans by becoming a Robin Hood for change

Paul, who headlines his first Showtime PPV event on Sunday, has made fighter pay a huge talking point in his entry to the sport

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- For a sport so structurally divided, where a YouTube star like Jake Paul could transition into being a legitimate pay-per-view brand in record time without an excessive amount of barriers for intrusion, boxing remains as unwelcoming to outsiders as any across all sports.   Paul (3-0, 3 KOs), the 24-year-old influencer, actor and entrepreneur, has pulled no punches regarding his want for acceptance among boxing traditionalists entering his toughest test to date as a bonafide boxing brand when he faces former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley (Showtime PPV, 8 p.m. ET) on Sunday at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.  Born in Cleveland and raised in the nearby suburb of Westlake with his older brother of two years, Logan, who made his own Showtime PPV debut in June by boxing Floyd Mayweather, Jake Paul enters a homecoming of sorts as the local boy who made good in his blue-collar city. Yet it's the dues he feels he has already paid in terms of making sure his meteoric transition into boxing was done the right way that still has him fighting for respect among the hard-core gatekeepers of the sweet science.