The referee brought the fighters together near the end of the fourth round to remind them that, in his words, fans are not paying to see this shit. Once Joshua shook off the ring rust from a 15-month layoff and Jake Paul decided to try to fight, the fight went the way most expected it to.
After a fight like this, more questions arise than answers. Why would Jake Paul take this fight? Maybe Paul was deluded enough to think that beating a 58-year-old Mike Tyson made him the new Baddest Man on the Planet. Perhaps Paul, after pivoting from his canceled fight against Gervonta Davis, saw this as an opportunity for the ultimate payday fight. Of course, trying to psychoanalyze Jake Paul is a fool’s errand, so it’s hard to know.
As Mark Krieger detailed, it was a shame that this fight was sanctioned by the Florida State Athletic Commission at all. While Jake Paul may be a multi-hyphenate in the modern sense of the word, Anthony Joshua is a boxer, and a damn good one at that. Joshua is an Olympic gold medalist and a two-time former heavyweight world champion. Even nearing the end of his career at the age of 36, Joshua is more than formidable.
Given how absurd this fight was on every level, who would have thought that Jake Paul could be competitive? Well, as of Friday afternoon, Paul, a 7-1 underdog, had attracted 82% of the bets and 90% of the money wagered at DraftKings on the winner of Friday’s sanctioned fight in Miami, Florida. People can do what they want with their money, but figuratively, setting it on fire might not be the best move.
Jake Paul is the ethos of this generation. Brash, self-made, driven by clicks and cash. People love him, and people hate him. His personality is similar to Floyd Mayweather Jr. after turning heel, to borrow a professional wrestling term, and changing from “Pretty Boy” Floyd to “Money” Mayweather.
Mayweather very successfully exploited boxing’s financial structure to make as much money as he possibly could, much like Jake Paul does. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with that; while it rubs people the wrong way, it leads to people paying attention to your fights. The difference is that Floyd Mayweather Jr. not only is an extremely gifted athlete, but he has trained his entire life to be a boxer.
When Jake Paul took on other social media influencers, Nate Robinson, and faded MMA fighters, it was a sideshow. Which is fine, people are entitled to consume whatever content they want.
Similar to circuses, the peak of boxing’s popularity occurred about a century ago. In the current day, with social media and declining attention spans, having Jake Paul around these fights has been a good thing for boxing. If you get people to watch the sideshow, they might be interested in the bigger acts.
Somehow we got from there to here, with Jake Paul opting to tame a lion and take on Anthony Joshua. Snake charmer is entertaining, but it doesn’t prepare you to become a lion tamer. You can talk a big game and proclaim that you’ll pull off a biblical-level upset, but once the bell rings, all that talk goes out the window. People call the boxing ring a chamber of truth because when two competitors fall apart, people can see with their own eyes what is what. No filters, no frills. As the saying goes, you don’t play boxing.
Jahmal Harvey vs. Kevin Cervantes was the opening game on Netflix. This super featherweight bout was completely one-sided, with Harvey scoring a takedown in round 1 and dominating from there. Harvey had 185 hits to 37 for Cervantes. Fortunately, it was only a six-round match.
The next fight was 50-year-old Anderson Silva taking on 43-year-old Tyron Woodley. During the pre-flight introductions, Woodley seemed to wonder why he agreed to this fight on three weeks’ notice. These two never fought in MMA, which would have at least made sense, but here they were going through the motions. Besides being out of their element, the other thing these two had in common was losing to Jake Paul. Silva scored a TKO at 1:33 of the second round after landing a right uppercut through Woodley’s non-existent guard.
After the fight, Silva called out former UFC foe Chris Weidman for a boxing match. Woodley only wanted to fight someone with a full training camp to prepare for it, which is understandable.
The final fight before the main event was Alycia Baumgardner defending her unified super featherweight championship against Leila Beaudoin. This bout was the only match on the televised card to be a full-length bout, with both women agreeing to fight twelve three-minute rounds. Baumgardner slowly broke Beaudoin down, first mentally and then physically. The champion scored a takedown at 2:59 of round seven. Beaudoin looked like she wouldn’t make it all twelve rounds, but she hung in there and showed some heart in the final two rounds. Two judges scored the fight 117-110, and the other scored it 118-109 for Baumgardner.
In the new year, Anthony Joshua looks set to finally fight Tyson Fury in a British superfight that has been in the offing for nearly a decade. As for Jake Paul, maybe he should take up a new hobby. Why not skateboard?
