LOS ANGELES, Dec 17 \u2014 YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Jake Paul faces former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday in a money-spinning made-for-streaming bout that has triggered alarm across the boxing world.<\/p>\n
Just over a year after his much-derided victory over a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, the 28-year-old American Paul will climb into the ring at Miami\u2019s Kaseya Centre to confront a far younger \u2014 and vastly more dangerous \u2014 opponent in the 36-year-old Joshua.<\/p>\n
The Netflix-backed spectacle, which reportedly will see the fighters split a staggering US$184 million (RM752 million) purse, has drawn fierce criticism, with many questioning why it was sanctioned.<\/p>\n
The British Board of Control has said it would not have approved the fight on safety grounds. Other fighters have warned that given the gulf in class, physical size and talent, Paul risks serious injury.<\/p>\n
For his most recent fight in June, the 6ft 1in (1.85m) Paul tipped the scales at 199.4 pounds (90.4 kilos). Britain\u2019s Joshua, who at 6ft 6in towers above Paul, weighed in at 252.5 pounds for his last outing in 2024.<\/p>\n
Eddie Hearn, Joshua\u2019s long-time promoter, described Friday\u2019s fight as a \u201ccatastrophic mismatch\u201d before the contracts had even been signed.<\/p>\n
\u2018Scary\u2019 damage\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other voices in the boxing world though have painted a darker picture, with former world heavyweight champion David Haye warning that the fight could be Paul\u2019s \u201clast day on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amir Khan, Britain\u2019s former light-welterweight champion, said a crushing victory for Joshua may even have lasting implications for boxing, turning viewers off the recent trend of crossover fights involving internet celebrities like Paul.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this could be the end of YouTubers jumping in with real active fighters,\u201d Khan told the Daily Mail. \u201cBecause it only takes one shot. One bad night, one clean shot, and someone can get seriously hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen the way someone\u2019s whole life can be altered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khan believes Paul will have no chance if Joshua makes full use of his physical advantages and superior ringcraft, as he did when inflicting a devastating second-round knockout of novice boxer Francis Ngannou last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAJ can bang,\u201d Khan said. \u201cHe\u2019s a former world champion. He\u2019s got power, size, everything. If he lands clean, the damage he can do is scary. Especially when he is landing it on someone like Jake Paul. He\u2019s not capable of taking that sort of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul, whose limited ring record includes 12 wins and one defeat with seven knockouts, insists he is ready to shock the world while acknowledging his ambitions are \u201cdelusional.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018In boxing people die\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to challenge myself against the best. We\u2019re going to go to war and the best man will win,\u201d Paul said last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have gotten to where I am today because of delusional optimism. It\u2019s delusion until it\u2019s not. It\u2019s got me to where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joshua insists he is tackling the fight as seriously as any other.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m gonna be honest, I\u2019m gonna break his face, I\u2019m gonna break his body up, I\u2019m gonna stomp all over him,\u201d Joshua said.<\/p>\n
That gruesome scenario is precisely what some analysts fear.<\/p>\n
Michael Bisping, the UFC hall-of-famer and combat sports commentator, has dismissed any chance of Paul springing a David v Goliath type upset.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way on this Earth that this fight ends with Jake Paul knocking out Anthony Joshua,\u201d Bisping said on his YouTube channel.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Joshua\u2019s) got way more experience. He hits harder. He\u2019s the bigger man. He\u2019s got the longer reach. He\u2019s an Olympic champion. Jake Paul is not going to go out there and turn this into a real-life David and Goliath. That ain\u2019t going to happen, and everybody knows that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bisping warned that if Joshua\u2019s pledge to approach the fight seriously carries weight, Paul could be in peril.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is a real fight \u2014 and apparently it is, so we\u2019ll go with that \u2014 there\u2019s a very good chance that somebody gets hurt, and I\u2019m sorry to say it ain\u2019t going to be Anthony Joshua,\u201d Bisping said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoshua has been in there with the best of the best. (In) boxing, people die. This is not a game. You don\u2019t play at boxing.\u201d \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, Dec 17 \u2014 YouTuber-turned-prizefighter Jake Paul faces former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,194234,35852,194231,194232,85,194233,194235],"class_list":{"0":"post-353925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-eddie-hearn-catastrophic-mismatch","12":"tag-jake-paul-vs-anthony-joshua","13":"tag-miami-kaseya-centre","14":"tag-netflix-boxing-event","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-us184-million-purse","17":"tag-youtubers-in-boxing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}