Jake Paul Calls Out Bomani Jones Projecting His Many Failures

The start to the second season of "Race Theory with Bomani Jones" is notable. Never before has an original HBO series experienced the numbers it has.

And we mean that not in a good way.

Bomani is losing more than 80% of his lead-in audience. He's not charting on cable. He's losing to infomercials in totality.

In fact, it took until this week for the program to make noise. And again, we mean that in not a good way.

HBO released a clip from an upcoming episode of "Race Theory" in which Bomani interviews YouTube star and boxer Jake Paul. Bomani isn't a fan of Paul. (Probably because he's white.) During the discussion, Jones tried to demean him.

It didn't work.

He began by asking the boxer what happens when he loses. “We’re all surprised that you keep winning these fights,” Jones said. “But if somebody does beat you, how much interest stays in this when it stops being a surprise?”

Paul responded, “I don’t plan on losing. I don’t train to lose. I feel like that’s probably your mindset. A lot of people try to project their mindsets onto me.”

Projecting, no doubt.

As for calling Bomani a loser: Bomani is winning in the sense that he has used race and supposedly anti-racist commentary to secure several television roles.

ESPN and HBO have granted him a lengthy leash. However, he's losing in the sense of what success in media is.

Ratings and popularity define the business. And Jones is bottom of the barrel, a multi-failure at that. His last four stops include the following:

-- Setting an ESPN Radio low in the afternoon.

-- Losing a damning percentage of Stephen A. Smith's television audience on ESPN at noon with record lows.

-- Getting canceled for record lows at 4 pm on ESPN.

-- Tanking 80% of John Oliver's lead-in ratings during his first season on HBO.

-- Tanking greater than 80% of Bill Maher's lead-in ratings during his second season on HBO.

Suffice to say Jake Paul appears accurate in stating Bomani is projecting his losses onto others.

Later, Paul tells Bomani he didn't know who he was before the interview:

“Imma be honest, bro, I don’t know who the fu*k you are. My PR team set up this interview.”

Based on Bomani's ratings on ESPN Radio, ESPN TV, and HBO -- neither does the public. And if they do know him, they certainly don't like him.

Paul's comment appeared to offend Jones, however. He fired back in signature 3rd-grade squeal by pretending he didn't know Jake Paul either.

“Dude, all I know about you is that people don’t like you,” Jones responded.

Tough to hear Bomani say "people don't like" someone else. Again, his ratings.

As for the unlikable Paul, he seems to be doing fine in popularity. He draws over 1 million pay-per-view buys a fight. He also boasts a YouTube page with 20.3 million subscribers.

Jake Paul is a phenomenon, a showman. He's the leading draw in combat sports.

Bomani Jones is a race hustler, ratings position. He's proof television is not a meritocracy.

Jake Paul might lose eventually, as Jones predicts. Most fighters do. But he certainly didn't lose this sitdown.

Perhaps Bomani will accept the L should the interview allow him to maintain an improvement of 23% of his lead-in this week.