Jake Paul had a rough night in the ring on Friday against Anthony Joshua, suffering numerous knockdowns en route to a devastating 6th round KO that broke his jaw in two places.<\/p>\n
Paul was never really in the fight. He got on his bike<\/a> in the early rounds and clinched quickly whenever the methodical Joshua was able to walk him down. Those clinches quickly turned to quasi-takedowns, and after several warnings the referee started scoring them as knockdowns. Once that happened Paul couldn\u2019t force a reset, and Joshua closed in for the kill (watch the finish here).<\/a><\/p>\n On paper, making it to the sixth round against Joshua is a moral victory for Paul. So is taking some of those punches, including the final right hand that ended the fight. It\u2019s the same punch that flatlined Francis Ngannou,<\/a> but Paul stayed conscious and made some funny faces, which is about as much as you could realistically ask from a fighter of his caliber against a unified champ and Olympic level boxer like Joshua.<\/p>\n Paul did \u2018so well\u2019 that a whole lot of people are still suggesting the fight was rigged or scripted. Despite \u201cThe Problem Child\u201d threatening to sue anyone who calls his fights fake, a whole lot of UFC fighters did just that.<\/p>\n \u201cHonest thoughts on the fight: I feel like AJ carried Jake Paul to the sixth round,\u201d former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya said. \u201cI know what my eyes see, and I understand fighting. But this is, I guess, the best result, or the most realistic result, I guess. But I know what my eyes were seeing in the early rounds and now we\u2019re here. Oh well, everyone made money.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like they had an agreement on which round Jake would go down in,\u201d bantamweight contender Aiemann Zahabi tweeted. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how such an accomplished boxer like Joshua couldn\u2019t cut off the ring earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n Boxing journalists were also feeling the fix.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big problem I have with Paul vs. Joshua is that I\u2019m not sure there wasn\u2019t an agreement of letting it go rounds,\u201d Associated Press contributor Matthew Aguilar wrote on X.<\/a> \u201cVery possible. So then that makes it fixed. At the least, it blurs the line between fake & real & that challenges the integrity of a sport that is already struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n And of course there\u2019s plenty of fight fans out there analyzing the fight like it\u2019s Zapruder footage, capturing every moment Joshua seemed to hold back a punch. Even the most rabid of the \u2018fight was fixed\u2019 crowd had to admit the finish was legit, though.<\/p>\n \u201cThat knockout in the 6th round from Anthony Joshua is authentic,\u201d commenter Elusive Raf admitted after four and a half minutes of proclaiming the fight was a work. \u201cBecause of the whiplash on the head and also the blood coming from the mouth after, coupled with the x-ray confirmation.\u201d<\/p>\n