Anthony Joshua Writes a Reality Check; Jake Paul Cashes It

We waited longer than anticipated but still got the ending we expected.

The look on Jake Paul’s face, captured in screen grabs, and by ringside photographers at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Friday night, as Anthony Joshua cocked his right hand, was less dread than resignation. Paul, the YouTuber-turned-boxer, who entered this megawatt showdown with a 12-1 pro record, knew what was coming, and knew he couldn’t avoid it. He could only hope to withstand it.

At that exact moment, cameras stationed at the opposite angle showed Joshua, a former heavyweight world champion renowned for the thunder in his fists, in a half-smirk. He, too, recognized the moment when he glimpsed it. All of this was beyond predictable.

Six rounds into this main event, with tens of millions of viewers streaming on Netflix, Paul, the 29-year-old crossover star had stopped running from Joshua. He retreated to a corner and tried to cover up but left his chin exposed.

This split second, and the sequence that followed, were inevitable.

Joshua unleashed that right cross. His fist crashed in to Paul’s jaw, breaking it in two places, we later learned.

Paul went down the way you do when your sibling rides the see-saw to the bottom and then hops off, leaving you to battle gravity alone. Straight and fast and heavy. Another fight you’ll never win. Referee Chris Young counted to 10 and waved it off.

That knockout, which improved Joshua’s record to 29-4 (26KO) came Round 6, which followed a fight round that saw Joshua send Paul (12-2, 7KO) to the canvas twice. And those knockdowns came after a noticeable shift in the bout’s tenor and tactics.

After four rounds of running, grabbing, and sporadic punching, Paul tried to stand his ground and throw punches in the fifth. We can’t dismiss his offense as half-baked; nothing he cooked up in training camp could handle this task. This fight was always going to end with Paul crumpled and dripping blood. We just didn’t know if he’d go down in a corner, or at centre ring, or if Joshua would knock him into press row.

If you had asked me last week I’d have told you this bout would last a round-and-a-half, and I wasn’t wrong. After a 4-round track meet, the fight started in the fifth and ended midway through the sixth.

In the aftermath, takes and takeaways are piling up across the internet.

Paul is a fraud…

(He’s more of a salesman)

This fight was fixed…

(LOL… no)

Joshua carried him…

(If so, he also dropped him…hard)

If you believe the figures floating around online — and I would take them all with a big grain of Himalayan Sea Salt — Paul and Joshua are each scheduled to gross $92 million USD.

But before that cash hits his account, Paul will already have cashed a reality check from Joshua. The chasm in skill between Paul the top 10 isn’t something he can wish away. And if audiences and media outlets are paying attention, they’ll also take Friday’s fight as a cue to right-size their expectations about Paul’s upside, and where his career fits in the sport’s bigger picture.

First, lets deal with this stubborn untruth:

In surviving into the sixth round, Jake Paul fought well against Anthony Joshua.

That analysis only holds up if we grade him on a curve because of his late start in the sport. But we can also evaluate Paul as a full-time boxer, with an elite team of trainers, and the budget to hire world-class sparring partners. His name tops the marquee, and he pulls in eight-figure paydays. He’s a professional boxer, period.

Now, imagine watching that exact fight involving anybody besides Jake Paul. Are you crediting the loser for surviving five rounds, or just relieved it ended so you never have to watch the guy again? You don’t need a PhD in the Sweet Science to understand that any fighter who makes 13 attempts to tackle his opponent, while landing only 16 punches, is living on the business end of a whitewash.

Those numbers reveal Paul’s deficiencies, and the yawning gap between him and a credible title challenge at any weight class. Not powerful enough to hurt heavyweights, too slow to keep pace with top-tier cruiserweights, and without the boxing I.Q. to make the tactical adjustments that separate champions from contenders.

So from here, we could, as sports fans an media members, recalibrate how we treat Paul and his boxing matches, because we can accept that all pro athletes aren’t equal. Justin Herbert is a professional quarterback, but so is the guy holding the clipboard for the St. Louis Battlehawks in the UFL. If you can’t imagine Chevan Cordeiro’s free agency headlining SportsCenter and the debate shows, then you can understand the disconnect between the attention Paul’s bouts receive and the skill he displays in the ring.

But sports marketing depends less on merit than it does on the story you’re telling, and in that respect Paul is, pound for pound, the best in boxing. When he’s on the A-side of an abject mismatch, he successfully peddles the idea that he’s a underdog with something to prove. And when the data says he’s outclassed he talks media, fans, and bettors in to thinking he has a chance.

And if you don’t think spin is Jake Paul’s true superpower, ask yourself why you keep tuning in.

In the ring he’s not an action fighter or a crafty technician. His bouts against overmatched journeymen end quickly, and his fights against shopworn former stars plod along to the final bell. None of past matches bear repeated watching, but every upcoming fight is appointment viewing.

It’s an almost impossible trick to pull off in boxing, and watching Paul do it every 6 months for the past half decade tells you it’s less a coincidence than a code he has cracked. And as established leagues and upstarts alike tinker with old rules hoping to attract new fans, Paul’s success is a reminder that the story you tell beforehand matters more than the product you ultimately deliver.

But competition is a different challenge and in the ring, against world class fighters with some tread on the tire, Paul is still only as good as his limitations. The right hand that put Tyron Woodley to sleep barely tickled Joshua, and the run-and-clutch defense that carried him distance against 58-year-old Mike Tyson fizzled after four rounds on Friday.

Those realities left him with two unappealing options:

A long night in full retreat, or a short one at the end of a right hand.

Joshua wound up making the decision for him.

He chose both.

 

 

 

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