Jake Paul knows what you’re thinking. He’s thought about it, too. Anthony Joshua? This isn’t a journeyman with a glossy record (Andre August, Ryan Bourland), a faded former middleweight titleholder (Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.) or a legend decades past his prime (Mike Tyson). This is Anthony freaking Joshua. The guy that pulverized Charles Martin to win the heavyweight title and ended Francis Ngannou’s boxing career with one punch. Sure, Joshua has fallen on tough times of late. He’s four years removed from his last reign as heavyweight champion. A year ago, Daniel Dubois knocked him out. But this is an Olympic gold medalist, a two-time titleholder, a 6' 6", brick-fisted puncher who doesn’t toy with lesser competition.
“This is insane,” says Paul. “I am a madman. I am out of my f---ing mind.”
It’s early December and Paul is peering through a laptop in Puerto Rico, where he has been training. Last month, Paul was preparing for Gervonta Davis, a 135-pound champion. Smaller, quicker sparring partners, like Shakur Stevenson, were recruited to help. When Davis fell out, Paul pivoted to Joshua. Out went Stevenson. In came accomplished heavyweights like Frank Sanchez, Jared Anderson and Lawrence Okolie. Recently, Okolie furnished Paul with a black eye.
Paul grins as he talks about it. Beneath the bravado there is still the wide-eyed Disney Channel star who can’t believe he made it this far. Five years ago Paul was part of the first wave of influencer boxers. His first fight was against gangly YouTuber AnEsonGib. Since then he has dispatched a steady diet of mixed martial arts stars (Tyron Woodley, Anderson Silva, Nate Diaz), a bare knuckle fighter (Mike Perry) and the grandfather version of Tyson. He has collected eight-figure checks, launched his own promotional company and become a driving force in women’s boxing. On Friday, he will face Joshua in a Netflix-streamed event that is expected to draw an audience in the tens of millions.
Why Joshua? “Why not?” shoots back Paul. Paul’s career has always followed two different tracks. There is the aspiring boxer, the one in pursuit of a world title. That path took him to fights with August and Bourland, a pair of fringy cruiserweights who satisfied public demand for Paul to face “real” fighters, and put him in the ring with Chavez Jr., who held a 160-pound belt a lifetime ago. Then there is the showman, the one who chased events like Tyson and Diaz. Joshua intersects both, a still dangerous heavyweight who brings a global audience.
And Paul believes he can win. He is respectful of Joshua’s accomplishments. Less so of his skills. Joshua, Paul says, “has two left feet.” Losses to Andy Ruiz and Oleksandr Usyk are evidence Joshua struggles with smaller fighters. Knockouts at the hands of Ruiz and Dubois prove that he’s chinny. Most see Paul’s narrow pathway to victory as landing one lucky shot. Paul sees a wider one outboxing Joshua over eight rounds.
“On paper, I shouldn't be able to win,” says Paul. “But in my head and in my heart, I believe that I will pull off one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.”
In November, Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn was in Orlando promoting a DAZN-streamed show when his phone pinged. It was Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s business partner. Davis was officially out of a scheduled November fight. Would Joshua be interested in stepping in?
Initially, Hearn was skeptical. Months earlier, Paul had floated the idea of facing Joshua. The two sides talked, with Paul eventually choosing an exhibition against Davis. In the aftermath, Hearn wondered if they were just using Joshua’s name. “Just to say ‘We’ve spoken to A.J.’s team,’ ” says Hearn. When Bidarian called, Hearn wanted to be sure that wasn’t happening.
It wasn’t. Joshua wasn’t the only opponent Bidarian had reached out to. Ryan Garcia, a popular welterweight contender, was approached. Garcia passed, citing a desire to focus on a 147-pound title early next year. Terence Crawford, then the undisputed super middleweight champion who was coming off a win over Canelo Alvarez, declined, too.
Paul, though, wanted Joshua. “He was my No. 1 choice,” says Paul. Bidarian asked if Joshua could fight on two weeks’ notice. Joshua could. Unknown to Bidarian—or anyone—Joshua was in camp, planning to parachute onto a Nov. 22 card in Riyadh to fight in an eight-rounder against veteran Cassius Chaney. Then there was the money. Bidarian offered Hearn the same deal as Davis, around $25 million, sources familiar with the offer told Sports Illustrated. Hearn agreed to that, too.
Days later, Bidarian called back. Would Joshua fight in December? “I said, ‘Yeah, we’d do it in December,’” Hearn says. “But then if you're doing that, I want more money because I know you’re going to go to Netflix and get more money.” Bidarian juiced the offer. Hearn accepted. “And that was it,” says Hearn. “It was almost too good to be true.”
Hearn still had work to do. He needed to get approval from DAZN (disclosure: I call fights for DAZN) for Joshua to fight on another network. “We needed a strategic plan to keep them happy,” says Hearn. He ran the fight by Turki Alalshikh, the Saudi Arabian official who had bankrolled several of Joshua’s recent fights. Alalshikh has been critical of Paul. He also had plans for Joshua in 2026, which include an anticipated showdown with Tyson Fury. According to Hearn, Alalshikh had one question: Would it be a real fight?
“And I was like, ‘We wouldn't be interested if it wasn’t,’ ” says Hearn. “And he said, ‘Good. If it’s a real fight, good.’ Listen, the money is outrageous. But it’s more than that. That’s what I think some people don’t realize. If it all goes completely to plan, which is we go out there, A.J. looks f---ing so scary and knocks this guy clean out with a massive audience, especially in the U.S., we’re there. We’re the biggest thing in boxing again. And that’s worth just as much as the money.”
Paul, of course, sees it differently. There were a few sideways looks when he pushed for Joshua, including from Bidarian. “Nakisa didn’t try to talk me out of it,” recalls Paul. “But he just was like, ‘Are you sure?’ ” He was. Joshua, Paul reasoned, offered an opportunity. To fight on the biggest stage. To make a pile of money. And to silence—permanently—the critics along the way.
“I will be in the best position in the sport of boxing out of anyone right at the top,” says Paul. “I can make any fight happen, and that’s really the goal. This is a win-win-win situation for me.”
On Tuesday, following an open workout in Miami, Joshua offered a window into his pre-fight mindset. “I’m a very respectful guy, brought up by a good family,” said Joshua. “But if I can kill you, I will kill you. That’s just how I am, and this is just the job I do, so let’s go.”
It was a dark line, but one that tracks with Joshua’s approach. To his team, the risk isn’t losing to Paul. It’s letting him hang around. Fans are expecting an Ngannou-like performance, with multiple knockdowns and a spectacular finish. If the fight gets into the second half, Paul wins. If it goes to a decision, what the judges say won’t matter.
“The theme of this fight from our side is no mercy,” says Hearn. “That’s the mantra. No mercy. And I will be saying to him, ‘Go and destroy him as quickly as possible.’ ”
Paul will admit to nerves. “I’d call it a heightened sense of anticipation,” he says. He felt it before, prior to his first fight with Woodley, in 2021. Days before, he broke down. “I started crying just because I was so emotional and had so much fear,” says Paul. Now, Paul says, “I know how to manage it.” Still, the feeling is familiar.
He says he is ready. It wasn’t a normal camp. He went from cutting to a 195-pound weight limit to face Davis to trying to pack on the pounds to face Joshua, who weighed in at a trim 243.4 pounds on Thursday. He went from chasing small sparring partners like Stevenson, Raymond Ford and Montana Love to absorbing thumping shots from high-level heavyweights.
“It’s been the hardest sparring of my career,” says Paul. “Very physically demanding and intense. My coaches are putting it on me. These guys are putting it on me. And that’s what we want. We want the sparring to be harder than what the fight may be. So, they’re coming in fresh, sending in all three guys over multiple rounds. It’s been very demanding. I’ve had to mentally rise to a new level as a fighter during this camp.”
Can he do it in the ring? Curiously, the odds aren’t that bad against him. Paul is a 12-to-1 underdog, per DraftKings. That’s a far cry from, say, the 42-to-1 underdog Buster Douglas was when he stopped Tyson in 1990 and roughly the same as Ruiz was when he stunned Joshua in 2019. “It’s hilarious to me that an Olympic gold medalist, two-time heavyweight champ of the world is not more favored than what he is,” says Paul. Jon Peters, a Hollywood producer, says he bet $5 million on Paul to win.
“I see the world where I outbox him,” says Paul. “And if the big shot comes, then it comes. But I believe I can actually pick him apart and make him miss and make him uncomfortable and put the pressure on him. And I think once he starts losing rounds early on, he’s going to be like, Whoa, I was supposed to knock this guy. Whoa, whoa. And the cookie will start to crumble.
“I’m coming to bring a fight and to test him and to test him early. He’s had weaknesses early on in fights. This is not just a survival fight. This is a fight where both men have knockout power early on and have finished opponents in the first round, the second round, the third. So, it’s going to be all-go war from the first bell.”
Hearn has framed this fight as the end of Paul. That won’t happen either, Paul says. He’s not entertaining the idea of losing but he’s not viewing one as career-ending, either. A loss to Tommy Fury in 2023 didn’t set him back. A loss to Joshua, if it happens, won’t either.
Joshua sees Paul as a winning lottery ticket, a pit stop, Hearn says, “before we get back to the real stuff.” Paul, says Hearn, “is in too deep.” He’s improved as a boxer but “ultimately one clean shot and it’s all over.” Paul disagrees. At Wednesday’s press conference, Paul was asked about Joshua’s life-threatening warning.
“Let’s f---ing go, bro,” said Paul. “Let’s put on a show for the fans. Let’s go to war.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘I’m a Madman’: Jake Paul Is Bracing for His Toughest Fight Yet.