Jake Paul, with a black eye, proves he's learning fist fighting the hard way.
A fight against Anthony Joshua next week could likely serve as a reality check for the YouTube sensation.
Firstly, let's give Jake Paul credit for what he has already achieved. If it was easy to go from sports YouTuber to professional athlete, more people would do it.
He may never win a major world title or beat a top division boxer by anything close to his prime, but he has managed to achieve success. BoxRec's top 100 heavyweight rankings. It's not everything, but it's something.
And as any sports fan with an Internet connection knows, Paul is signed to fight former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua next Friday in Miami in the main event of a fight card that will air on Netflix. So again, give Paul credit for taking a risk instead of ending up on the A side again in a mismatch disguised as a credible boxing match.
To prepare for the toughest fight of his career, Paul sent an impressive list of heavyweight contenders to his training base in Puerto Rico to act as sparring partners.
Frank Sanchez, aka the Cuban Flash.
Jarrett Anderson, once touted as America's next great heavyweight.
Martin Bakole, the 280-pound battering ram, is the man who knocked Anderson out of the fight when they welcomed 2024. Once again, kudos to Paul for choosing to experience first-hand what it's like to share the ring with a heavyweight who has the edge in every measurable way, including experience.
Joshua peaked in the late 2010s.
Of course, Joshua peaked in the late 2010s and was knocked out by Daniel Dubois in his last fight 15 months ago. But he's not as washed out as Paul's typical opponent—Ronald Reagan was president when Mike Tyson reached his prime—and he's still a hell of a test to get through without training.
But the rest of us, if we've done our homework, know that it doesn't matter.
If you're looking for a competitive boxing match on Dec. 19, focus on the co-feature, pitting super lightweight champion Alicia Baumgardner against challenger Leila Beaudoin of Temiscuata, Que.
Behind the Netflix hype around the main event lies a real disparity in experience, ring IQ and raw punching power. These are gaps that Paul likely won't be able to close in one training camp, regardless of the quality of his sparring partners. So if this high-stakes clash turns into one-sided bullying in front of a huge online audience, we can't be surprised. We just need to listen to what the facts are trying to tell us.
Replace Paul with one of his fellow boxers and we won't even bother stopping this fight. In fact, we're more likely to skew Joshua's opponent because a world-class heavyweight with his sights set on one last title shot doesn't care about fighting a third-division heavyweight. Even in the fight to return after a 15-month break.
But since that heavyweight is Jake Paul, who brought Netflix and their megabucks with him, the venture makes sense for Joshua, who won Olympic gold in 2012. And because it's Paul, it's tempting to convince yourself that he has a chance because he's well known, and in the age of social media, influence passes for competence.
Joshua's track record tells us there are ways to beat him. Andy Ruiz used top hand speed when they met in 2019. Oleksandr Usyk did it with elite footwork and ring skill; Daniel Dubois with pure power. But compared to the boxers in the top 10, Paul doesn't exaggerate any of these qualities. In his last fight, he outclassed Julio Cesar Chavez, who peaked 13 years and three weight classes ago, but struggled in the later rounds when Chavez made a tactical adjustment that Paul didn't seem to see coming.
He started punching.
Joshua probably won't wait until the 6th round to unleash his offense, and if the audience doesn't understand the difference between “serviceable” and “world class”, we'll all probably find out next Friday.
None of the details we've just laid out match the opponent selection formula that Paul usually follows, so how exactly did he end up facing a recent former champion with one-punch knockout power in both hands?
Paul's ideal opponent
As a reminder, Gervonta “Tank” Davis, the WBA lightweight champion, was Paul's original opponent in the fight scheduled for mid-November. It represented a slight departure from the routine, as at 30 he was still in his prime. But Davis never competed above 140 pounds, while Paul intended to weigh 195 pounds.
Davis is also the opposite of a volume hammer, preferring instead to patiently search for a hole and then stop you with powerful, laser-guided strikes. He also agreed to the fight amid rumors that he was mentally removed from the sport and wanted a huge payday to catapult him into retirement.
In other words, he was the perfect opponent for Paul: short, perhaps unmotivated, prone to slow-paced combat, but undefeated and famous.
Then, in late October, an ex-girlfriend sued Davis, alleging he assaulted her at a Miami strip club. Paul abandoned him as an opponent, moved the fight date to December 19 and began a frantic search for a new partner.
For a lower-energy contest, Paul might be able to bring in a replacement opponent who fits the profile – a big name, under 40, no championship boxing experience required. But with Netflix giving the program streaming access (Paul vs. Mike Tyson recorded 65 million concurrent views) and backing it with its money, the fight didn't just need another star. We needed an attraction.
Consider Joshua, whose fight against Wladimir Klitschko in April 2017 drew 90,000 spectators to Wembley Stadium in London.
He also shows off his size (at 6-foot-6, he's down to 245 pounds) and that amazing punching power. Only three of his 28 victories came to completion.
So next week's fight could likely serve as a reality check for Paul. The last time he faced an opponent who was not selected due to his shortcomings was in February 2023, when he lost an eight-round decision to Tommy Fury. It is unclear how he will cope with another talented and experienced opponent. And healthy And full time training.
It's also a crash course in the boxing business for Netflix, which is betting big on live sports. Can you imagine Washington Commanders getting their Christmas Day matchup against FC Dallas canceled on Netflix? And can you imagine the Cowboys lining up a Division III college team as a late replacement and expecting fans and Netflix to embrace it?
Of course not, because normal professional sports are organized according to a clear schedule. Boxing has countless promoters, and the selection of matches depends on the whims of changing influencers. It's structured like a battle royale.
But boardrooms aside, the action in the ring is pretty easy to understand.
If boxing is the “Sweet Science of Bruises,” then Paul has spent the last month in the lab, and that black eye he's been sporting lately proves he's learning the boxing fight the hard way.
And next week's fight will be another painful lesson.
