Jake Paul was almost knocked down by former UFC champ Tyron Woodley in their boxing match

• Jake Paul was given his greatest gut check yet as he overcome a mid-fight scare to score a fourth win.
• The YouTuber-turned-boxer beat former UFC champ Tyron Woodley by split decision.
• Woodley protested the result, saying: "I feel like I won the fight."

Jake Paul likes telling his opponents that he'll turn them into a meme when they fight. But if any image from his latest bout was going to go viral, it was a photo taken shortly after his opponent Tyron Woodley punched him onto the ropes.

Paul, the 24-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer, whipped up a raucous crowd inside the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland as he engaged Woodley, a former UFC champion, in his fourth pro bout on August 29.

Until then it had all been too easy for Paul, who had navigated the often unforgiving world of combat sports with apparent ease.

He finished fellow creator AnEsonGib in the first round of his debut fight in 2020, concussed Nate Robinson with an almighty whack later that year, and brutally beat ex-MMA champ Ben Askren early in 2021.

Paul's opponents have all been carefully selected to maximize his chances of success, in bouts that have a veneer of competition.

Askren, for example, was a wrestler by trade, retired from fighting, and recovering from hip surgery.

Woodley is 39 years old, winless since 2018, and had not scored a knockout in five years. He also fought at 170 pounds rather than the 190-pound limit for Sunday's showdown.

Yet there were moments in the fourth round when Paul seemed destined to hit the deck.

Woodley landed one of his seven jabs and connected with six of his 18 power punches in that round, leathering Paul so hard that he would have crashed to the canvas had he not been held up by the ropes.

Paul was fortunate to not have been given a count. He lost the round 9-10 on all three judges' cards but would have been handed an 8-10 score had the referee given him a standing count for the knockdown.

Ultimately, it would not have affected the outcome: a split decision win in Paul's favor, with two of the judges favoring his work, compared with one for Woodley, who protested the result.

"I feel like I won the fight," said Woodley, in a statement sent to Insider.

"Jake is a great opponent. I didn't expect him to eat my punches like that. But the fact that one judge only gave me two rounds is insane."

Woodley then said he wanted a rematch. "Let's run that back," he said. "The ropes held him up when I hit him. I could have had that knockdown.

"I walked him down and landed back time and time again. I landed power punches, he missed shots all night."

Paul praised Woodley, and then praised himself, in his post-fight comments.

"He was a tough opponent and he's been fighting for so many years and I'm still new to this," said Paul. "My legs felt weird, I wasn't sure what was wrong with me.

"He hit me with one shot the whole fight, and it was a good shot. I don't know what that one judge saw. But l still got the victory. For me to come here and go eight rounds in my fourth fight, who does that? I'm doing things that have never been done."