When Anthony Joshua’s fight against Jake Paul was announced last month, boxing insiders and fans alike assumed it must be some kind of practical joke, or that there was a secret clause written into the contract to ensure the latter does not get seriously hurt. Either that or Paul, a former Disney Channel star who has only had 13 professional bouts, harboured some kind of death wish. Three days out from a dystopian contest that is starting to feel morbidly real, Joshua still carries the air of a man clutching a $50million lottery ticket who cannot believe his luck.
Common sense dictates that Paul does not even have a puncher’s chance. When Joshua beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, the 28-year-old Paul was still making prank videos on YouTube. The face-offs between the pair in Miami this week have been comical, too, with Joshua taller by five inches and heavier by around three stones. Paul has cited God being on his side, but at least David was afforded a slingshot against Goliath.
Paul’s best win to date came in June against Julio César Chávez Jr, a genuine — if inactive and inconsistent — former middleweight world champion, but it is still less than three years since he lost against Tommy Fury, who is better known for his exploits on Love Island than emulating his older brother Tyson’s talents in the ring.
Paul, right, trains for the Joshua fight at his camp in Puerto Rico, where it is claimed sparring partners go easy on the social media star to stay in work
But as Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s promoter, points out, his charge is only a 6-1 underdog. When Buster Douglas stunned Mike Tyson in 1990, the bookmakers had offered odds of up to 42-1. Paul meandered to a meaningless victory over the 58-year-old ghost of Tyson a year ago but, as he has largely fought former athletes and MMA fighters, it is difficult to determine how good — or not — he is. Even Eddie Hearn, who accepts nothing less than a spectacular knockout for Joshua would be catastrophic, admits he has heard a lot of mixed messages.
To Paul’s credit, there can be little doubt any more that he has dedicated himself to professional boxing. He spends much of the year in Puerto Rico, where he lives on an isolated compound with a state-of-the-art gym, recovery facility, and accommodation for his team and sparring partners. For this camp, he brought over bona fide heavyweight contenders in Lawrence Okolie, Jared Anderson and Frank Sánchez, but Steve Geffrard, a 35-year-old from Miami who campaigns at 175lb, has seen Paul’s development first-hand over the course of hundreds of rounds.
“I was impressed with Jake because he has it all as far as the money and the fame, so I thought I was just going to be with a YouTuber and mess around, but he works extremely hard,” Geffrard says. “He has all the resources: the best coaches; strength and conditioning; physios; nutritionists, and he is a good athlete. Whether people want to admit it or not, I’ve seen a lot of improvement in his skills in the last two years.
“He’s a strong fighter. He’s got quick hands. I think the problem is he hasn’t really been able to show it yet because of the people he’s fought. He’s way better than the level of competition he has been fighting. This is a massive jump, but it’s boxing. You can’t count anybody out. We’ve seen some crazy things happen in the past.”
DeAndre Savage, who is ranked No248 in the heavyweight division by BoxRec, offers a more damning verdict after spending about six weeks in Paul’s camp in the build-up to the fight against Tyson. “When I sparred Jake, I recognised that he is still a little green. He doesn’t have the experience to fight Anthony Joshua. The fight doesn’t really make sense to me. I don’t think it’s even going to be close,” he says.
Paul coasts to a points victory against the 58-year-old Tyson in November last year
TIMOTHY A CLARY/GETTY IMAGES
Savage does go on to credit Paul’s work ethic, but then claims he had to hold back in their spars for fear he would otherwise have been sent home and missed out on a good wage. “I couldn’t give it my all because I’d have lost my job,” he says. “If you start beating him up [in sparring] he’ll cut the day short. That happened a couple of times, so that’s why I just had to work with him, move him around, give him what he wants… Anthony Joshua’s got way more experience than me, so I don’t know what Jake’s motive is.”
Many have wondered just that, given Paul’s enormous social media following means he could have still earned an eight-figure sum against a far inferior opponent. The chasm in calibre between the two fighters is also why the British Boxing Board of Control would have refused to license the fight if it had been staged in the UK.
Bidarian concedes there were some US states where the boxing commission asked if Paul would fight another heavyweight before Joshua. “I was like, ‘OK, so if he fights this tomato can, you’re good?’ They said yes. It doesn’t make any sense,” Bidarian says before bringing up the record of Michael Sprott, who had lost 22 times before he fought Joshua in 2014.
“When people say this is dangerous, number one: every boxing match is dangerous. Number two: this is a lot less dangerous than what happens on almost every single card, which is promoters lining up prospects against journeymen. Joshua fought this guy [Sprott] in his tenth fight. He was coming off a knockout loss and lost five times after that. That’s more dangerous. Jake is not coming there to get knocked out.”
As for the insinuation the fight must somehow be rigged, Bidarian is bullish. “If we’ve ever had any stipulation in any contract that was anything other than what’s been announced, that didn’t make it a professional fight in any way — that would be illegal,” he says. “In the US, that would be a federal crime. Assume that I want to take the risk of going to jail and Jake Paul wants to. Do you think our partners at Netflix, the biggest media company in the world, want to commit a federal crime?
Paul defeats former middleweight world champion Chávez Jr last summer but he has never confronted anybody with the punching power of Joshua
CRIS ESQUEDA/GETTY IMAGES
“The only time in the history of Jake Paul’s career we’ve ever had anything funny in a contract has been disclosed, which was when he fought Mike Tyson. Instead of three-minute rounds, it was two-minute rounds, and the gloves in that fight were 14oz instead of 10oz.”
This fight has been reduced to eight three-minute rounds and Joshua has to weigh in below 245lb — half a stone lighter than for his brutal defeat by Daniel Dubois in September 2024. But the fact the pair are using regulation 10oz gloves ought to mean Joshua ends the contest quickly.
If the fight were to go on any longer than three rounds, it would say as much about the 36-year-old’s waning powers as Paul’s supposed improvement. Perhaps the American’s team are banking on the Dubois fight having taken a toll on Joshua, but it is one hell of a gamble. People might no longer be able to criticise the credibility of Paul’s opponent or his ambition to be recognised as a genuine boxer, but it could well come at a great cost to both himself and the sport.
Anthony Joshua v Jake Paul
Kaseya Centre in Miami, Florida
Saturday, 3.30am (GMT)
TV Netflix