By: Sean Crose
The moment of truth came Friday night in the city of Miami. After all the proclamations of disbelief, all the head shaking, and all the concern that came with the knowledge that Jake Paul would square off with none other than Anthony Joshua, the two men – one an enormously popular product of social media, the other a former world heavyweight titlist – finally answered the opening bell before Netflix cameras. At best the fight would be absurd. At worst, terribly damaging.
In the end, the fight more or less went as expected though. Paul probably lasted a few rounds longer than most had thought or preferred. The truth is that Paul’s strategy seemed to be to hit and run, hit and run, hit and run. The thing is when you’re hitting and running you have to hit as well as run. He may have taken a round or two, maybe even three, but Paul really didn’t spend much time in the fight. It was simply a matter of when Joshua would catch him. And of course he caught him. Paul fell to his knees more times than anyone would care to remember. That came from grappling on the inside but when it was punches that started to put him down, the fight was all over.
Give Paul this, the guy has guts. Even when it was obvious that the fight was all but over the kid kept on giving it his all. He can also take a pretty good punch. Sure, Joshua laid him out at the end, but he had landed fairly clean and not done a whole lot of damage up until that point. Paul also showed that he’s not a half bad technician in the ring. He knew how to move and hold with the best of them. He was simply up against a man who was bigger, stronger and most likely faster. On top of that, Joshua was far more experienced. The truth is that there was no shame in Paul’s performance…except, of course, for those excessive visits to the canvas.
“This is boxing,” Joshua said afterward. “Every time he hit me I stood there and I tried to hit him straight back… It’s just what we do.” Joshua also gave credit to his vanquished foe.
“Jake, well done,” he said. “Well, well done.” With that being said, Paul admitted that he had his jaw broken by the former titlist “It’s definitely broke,” he said, after crediting Joshua for a winning performance.
*Images: DAZN
