Jake Paul is set to take on Anderson Silva in a hotly anticipated boxing match.
"I am just excited, man. I am just excited. Everything happens for a reason," Paul recently told ET."I have trained all year for this moment and people are going to see a new fighter on October 29th."
"There's no celebrities in Ohio and he just happened to be there for some reason at an MMA fight," he recalled of the childhood encounter, where he snapped a pic with Silva all those years ago. "It's very surreal man. I started jumping rope, and I just looked up at the posters [promoting their match] and I just had to like giggle to myself. Like, this is just hilarious that we are here and I am fighting this guy.
"This is what I do for a living so it's easy for me to turn that switch on," Paul said."But I am carrying that Mamba mentality into the ring.", Paul explained,"You know, he knocked over his teammate, Pau Gasol, on the redeem team. He didn't give a s**t, you know, if they were cordial or not. They just won the championship. [Kobe] tackled him in the sport of basketball! So I am carrying that Mamba mentality into the fight on Saturday.