When Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua confirmed they would fight each other, Tyson Fury’s gut reaction bucked the conventional wisdom that this is one of the most hopeless mismatches of all time.
‘I’m putting £1million on Jake to knock him out,’ Fury announced. With undisguised glee.
If The Gypsy King placed the wager with alacrity and Paul the Disruptor pulls off one of the most astonishing upsets in ring history tonight, Fury may bank an even bigger fortune than the stratospheric purses which have drawn two unlikely dance partners into this awkward embrace.
For a few brief hours after the books opened some odds-makers quoted Paul as a 90-1 underdog. Let’s do the maths. At the current exchange rate, £90million equates to $120m.
It has been speculated Paul and Joshua are to receive anywhere from £30m each to a prizepot of up to £140m for a contest expected to last closer to a handful of heartbeats than to the maximum of eight three-minute rounds in 10oz gloves plus seven sixty-second intervals.
Nice work if you can get it. For barely half an hour’s toil. Even if it does take one of them almost as long to regain his senses. But for which the Netflix piper has to be paid. Preferably by the blood-lust drama of a spectacular KO.
Anthony Joshua pretends to punch a smiling Jake Paul ahead of their £140m Miami showdown
So of course, this big-top carnival on the banks of Biscayne Bay is predominantly about money. As are all these crossover fights between sport and celebrity. With this fight against an active former heavyweight champion expected to lure more than the 60million streamers for Paul’s preceding dalliance with the aged marijuana smoker Mike Tyson.
So much for the knee-jerk hysteria condemning this event as a circus which is terrible for boxing. The hard old game finds itself engaging with a new young audience excited by prize-fighting in all its manifestations. As for the finances, were Winston Churchill still with us he would have a phrase for this one: ‘Never in the field of human combat has so much been owed to just two.’
Owed to Paul the YouTube phenom with a following of tens of millions for his videos of play-acting and provocative warbling, his brusque hi-jacking of big-business investment, his rampant online gambling empire and now boxing under his own tradition-busting promotion company. He who has somehow invented the 36-hour working day, with never a dull moment. A hairy hiker if ever there were one.
Owed also to AJ for agreeing to risk bringing his proud record as an Olympic and two-time world heavyweight champion along with his British legion of followers to a party glamorised by A-list guys and their dolls.
Which will help him upgrade his multi-million-pound property portfolio into four-generational wealth for his family. A mega-burger of a shindig to which entry is priced between a hundred bucks in the uppermost ramparts of the 20,000-seat Kaseya Arena, and an eye-watering £22,500 a pop for those who can afford the ice-bucket-list of a ringside perch, groupie meets and greets, gold-plated tickets and enough vintage champagne to float their yachts in the nearby marina.
And, oh yes, there will also be a fight. One in which Fury is wagering against the obvious. Why? Because he has nothing to lose.
Not if Paul lands a bolt from the blue sea nearby which kiboshes tentative plans for AJ and the Gypsy King to finally fight each under the auspices of Saudi Arabia late next year. Against which that million-pound betting slip is an insurance policy.
Not if the impact of all the razzmatazz is crowned by Joshua delivering a huge knockout which inflames fan appetite for that long overdue Battle of Britain with Fury.
Underdog Paul is giving up almost two stone to Joshua
Nor would his Romany Majesty be unamused if Joshua, his arch-rival for boxing’s public affection, comes catastrophically unstuck. And the closer the fight gets, the less alone Fury is in his forecast.
The odds against Paul have dwindled from astronomical to 9-1 during a surge in the betting which has seen more than 60 per cent of the punters go against Joshua, even though he remains a 1-5 on favourite.
A shift probably owing much to MAGA-mania and may tempt Donald Trump to take the short drive up the road from his Mar-a-Lago estate to cheer on the free thinker who endorsed him in the presidential election.
History and logic still favour the former unified heavyweight champion whose wealth of experience dwarfs this novice prankster who has already been beaten by Fury’s cousin Tommy. As does AJ’s 6ft 6in of muscle over a natural cruiserweight.
And yet — and yet — fringe aspects have been marinating into an alternative case for Paul. Joshua has not boxed for more than a year since being almost decapitated by Daniel Dubois. Twice he had his ears boxed off by Oleksandr The Great Usyk. All in world title fights.
Furthermore, this is the first time AJ has been required to cut weight in his fighting life. As the main attraction for this event Paul has compelled Joshua to sweat down to 243lbs, roughly 25lbs below his walking-around bulk. He still looks like Adonis but will he still have the strength of Hercules?
Joshua was certainly quick to attempt to rain on that phase of Paul’s parade. As he came to the scales 1.6lbs inside the 245lbs limit, AJ insisted: ‘I’ve made the weight easily. No problem.’
The disparity between them was emphasised at the official weigh-in as Paul — at 216.6 lbs — scaled some four pounds less than when he defeated Tyson.
And, oh dear, when he roared, ‘champ you know who I are’ he clearly did so through a sore throat and a bad cold.
Still, the pressure is all on Joshua. The whole wide world of boxing and a majority of the United Kingdom expect him to finish this inside two rounds.
Anything longer and the love affair with the public will wither. And if the unimaginable happens both AJ and his promoter Eddie Hearn admit defeat would signal the end of both their careers.
Most intriguingly of all, the Jake-in-the-box here says he has ‘detected a flaw in Joshua’s boxing.’
Most likely Fury’s premonition has been triggered by the same powers of observation. That Joshua has lost his punch resistance after being dropped to the canvas five times by Dubois as well and sent teetering around the ring by Usyk.
Joshua ridicules gossip that the fight is scripted, saying: ‘That’s not in my contract and it’s not my intention. Which is to knock him out as quickly as possible.’ Which would minimise any danger of him being caught by one freakish, earth-reverberating blow.
Paul’s boxing skills have improved sufficiently for The Problem Child to take on a third ring name, El Gallo De Dorado, which translates from Spanish into The Golden Rooster.
Well, Christmas is not a happy time for turkeys. If this one is to avoid a roasting he probably needs a presidential intervention along the lines of The Donald’s pardoning of the rooster which trotted the White House lawn at a thanksgiving celebration.
Thus being spared the oven by an order to live out the rest of his days crowing down on the ranch.
Cock-a-doodle-do.