After scoring a sixth-round knockout against Jake Paul on Friday night, Anthony Joshua shared a piece of advice for his opponent if he wants to continue fighting at heavyweight.
Speaking to reporters after the bout, Joshua explained that Paul “needs to work harder” because it’s “very difficult” to compete at the top of level of the heavyweight division.
Joshua was also hard on himself because he didn’t think his performance was up to his personal standard:
“No, I needed to do better. I needed to do better,” Joshua said when asked if he thought this was a successful showing. “No. I needed to do better. No, it’s a win, but it’s not a success. I think my coach expects more from me, and I expect more for myself. But what can we do? We can’t reverse the clock. I have to move forward. I have to put that in the past now. After today, you may see a bit of social media trying to lap up all of the algorithm attention, but for me, it’s in the past. I can’t live off of that win. I’ve got a lot of improvement that I need to do, so yeah, I’m not happy.”
Paul was at a huge disadvantage coming into the bout. He is significantly smaller than Joshua and is not experienced at heavyweight, with the exception of the circus that was his matchup with Mike Tyson.
Even though Joshua hadn’t fought in 15 months and his last appearance was a knockout loss against Daniel Dubois, he is one of the most accomplished heavyweight fighters of this era and still close to his prime years.
For most of his professional boxing career, Paul has competed as a cruiserweight. If he wants to stay heavyweight going forward, it might be in his best interest to take on lower-profile opponents than someone like Joshua to build up his body for the rigors of this level.
It was evident in this match that Joshua was so far above and beyond Paul in terms of skill and talent. The final result bore that out with Joshua connecting on 32 more punches overall, including 23 more power punches.