{"id":339762,"date":"2025-12-28T19:41:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339762\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T19:41:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T19:41:18","slug":"jake-paul-targets-former-anthony-joshua-opponent-for-comeback-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/339762\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Paul targets former Anthony Joshua opponent for comeback fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Paul is already considering how he might bounce back from defeat against Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old American superstar stepped up in the biggest way against the two-time world heavyweight champion from England<\/a>, managing to survive for six rounds in their main event spectacle fight before being on the receiving a brutal knockout.<\/p>\n

Both men took the fight on late notice after an exhibition between Paul and Gervonta Davis was pulled. Joshua ultimately landed the big-money bout, but the likes of Francis Ngannou \u2014 who \u2018AJ\u2019 knocked out inside two rounds \u2014 and Terence Crawford were also approached.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Impaulsive<\/a>, Paul revealed that Ngannou is still on his list of targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told everyone I would do better than Francis and that Francis kinda has no chin. He\u2019s lowkey soft \u2026 I\u2019ll fight Francis. That\u2019s a good idea actually. I think maybe now he\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ngannou has competed just once in MMA since his loss to Joshua in March of 2024, and turned down the opportunity to face Paul after branding the offer \u2018insulting,\u2019 not because of the money, but the fact that he was being drafted in as a replacement for the comparably tiny \u2018Tank\u2019 Davis.<\/p>\n

\u2018AJ\u2019 of course had no such problem signing on the dotted line, which has now left Paul in the situation. Though he continues to talk up his return in 2026, many in the sport feel that the broken jaw sustained and subsequent surgery may see him forced to retire from fighting.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Paul is already considering how he might bounce back from defeat against Anthony Joshua. The 28-year-old American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-339762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}