{"id":57494,"date":"2025-08-10T17:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T17:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/57494\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T17:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T17:56:11","slug":"jake-paul-a-massive-frontrunner-for-anthony-joshua-boxing-fight-eddie-hearn-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/57494\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Paul a ‘Massive Frontrunner’ for Anthony Joshua Boxing Fight, Eddie Hearn Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Paul is a “massive frontrunner” to be the next fighter to face two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, promoter Eddie Hearn told Boxing News’ Andi Purewal<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

“It’s gone from what I thought was a publicity stunt to a fight that has every chance of happening,” Hearn said. <\/p>\n

Joshua’s last fight took place in September 2024, when he lost to Daniel Dubois by a fifth-round knockout in London.<\/p>\n

Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) went into that fight surrounded by rumors of a future bout with Tyson Fury, but hasn’t scheduled a fight since his defeat by Dubois.<\/p>\n

Hearns said on Friday that Joshua would be drawn to accept the fight because of the viewership that comes with fighting Paul (12-1, 7 KOs), who established himself as a YouTube and social media influencer before he launched his boxing career in 2018.<\/p>\n

Paul’s fight against Mike Tyson last November drew the most streams of any global sporting event in history, according to Netflix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“That fight, bizarrely, probably does bigger numbers than any other fight you could possibly make,” Hearns said. “AJ’s at the stage in his career, obviously, he doesn’t have a world title. He doesn’t have an opponent locked in. I have to present opportunities for him.”<\/p>\n

Hearns continued, “There isn’t one fighter on the planet that wouldn’t go, ‘What, do you want me to go in there and chin Jake Paul for a load of money? Yeah, alright.’ I mean, that’s basically how that conversation would go.”<\/p>\n

Hearns added that it had just been in “the last 24 hours” that Paul had become the biggest frontrunner to fight Joshua next.<\/p>\n

Paul called out Joshua on a March episode of BS w\/ Jake Paul<\/a>, during which he claimed he could beat the two-time world champion. <\/p>\n

“I want to fight Anthony Joshua, exclusive, because I know I will f–king beat Anthony Joshua’s a–,” Paul said. “He doesn’t have a chin, and he has no skill, and he’s stiff. And I love you Anthony, we’re friends… but I want to fight you.”<\/p>\n

Paul weighed in<\/a> at just under 200 pounds ahead of his last fight, a unanimous decision over former WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez, in June. He may need to put on some weight in order to take on Joshua, who weighed in<\/a> at 252 pounds last September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jake Paul is a “massive frontrunner” to be the next fighter to face two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-57494","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\/57494","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=57494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}