Credit to Paul for being dedicated and training consistently but still hard to take the whole thing seriously. The guy found a niche of fighting undersized MMA fighters with no hands. And the easily agitated MMA fanbase is perfect for them.
From what I've seen on this forum the MMA community is normal so if you guys read this, don't take the following on yourselves.
All over social media probably MMA fans are the most insecure fan base that I've seen. The constant bickering about "wHo WoUlD wIn In A rEaL FiGhT tHoUgH" like we'd care about all that and we wouldn't watch a sport here, the celebration and devastation about the results of backwater club fights, Triller shytshows, and any other kind of freak show fights that feature an MMA guy boxing against someone, not from MMA...
Most boxing fans don't care like that about who wins in a "Triad Combat" fight, or a Paul fight and we were just laughing at Chavez Jr. losing to Silva while many MMA fans lived that off as some huge win over boxing
On the flip side they are on suicide watch when their guys get knocked out by a Youtuber, even though at the end of the day it also doesn't matter at all to their sport.
They make sure to leave a post about fantasy street fights between every two "But how this will affect the UFC's brand
" post though
The point is Paul and his handlers found an over-sensitive fanbase that really counts these freak shows as something and they mercilessly exploit it.
They are building the guy up as an out of their sport heel to insecure MMA fans and it works wonders for them, great idea tbh only looking at it from a business viewpoint.