On one side there was an Anthony Joshua fighting with the intensity of a land registry clerk; on the other, a Jake Paul playing the role of Forrest Gump, running wildly around the ring and repeatedly throwing himself to the canvas in a desperate attempt to reach the final bell. The spectacle staged in the main event of the MVP Promotions card at Miami’s Kaseya Center was rather depressing, but it ended in the only possible way: a knockout victory for Anthony Joshua and a double jaw fracture for Jake Paul.
From the very first moments of this grotesque contest, it was clear what kind of approach the two fighters intended to adopt. Paul, who had requested and obtained an unusually large ring for the occasion, immediately began running along the ropes to avoid exchanges, while Joshua followed him half-heartedly, telegraphing his punches and showing no urgency whatsoever to land them.
The script did not change over the following rounds, with Paul not only moving frenetically but also occasionally diving in to clinch his opponent, wrapping his arms around Joshua’s waist or even his legs, before waiting for the referee’s break.
Meanwhile, AJ maintained the typical attitude of someone sparring in the gym with a raw beginner and deliberately holding back. His pressure was minimal, his punches lacked explosiveness, to the point that he missed wildly on several occasions, and his focus was at an all-time low—so much so that he was caught by an uppercut to the chin and a jab flush on the face in the third round.
This approach by the former heavyweight world champion allowed Paul to stay in the fight longer than many had expected, but even without taking any devastating shots, the ex-YouTuber was already severely short of breath by the fourth round. In that round, Paul burned his last remaining energy to land a few punches, but he also began breathing heavily with his mouth open and throwing himself to the canvas at every opportunity just to catch his breath.
It took Joshua no more than shifting from first to second gear in the fifth round to steer the fight toward its natural conclusion. An increasingly exhausted Paul, after absorbing a combination from AJ, stumbled backward on his own and ended up on the canvas yet again when Joshua rushed at him. Although no particularly significant punches landed cleanly, the referee rightly administered a count to punish what had by then clearly become a survival tactic.
Another Joshua attack—a straight right followed immediately by a left hook to the head—sent Paul to his knees once more. He miraculously made it to the end of the round only because his opponent made no real effort to finish him.
The show, however, could not go on much longer and ended in the following round, the sixth, after two more knockdowns. The decisive one caused the most damage, as Joshua’s final right hand landed on Paul’s chin while his mouth was open—a situation that in boxing can easily result in a fracture.
Jake Paul in fact stated during the post-fight interview that he suspected his jaw was broken. Later, from the hospital, he posted an image on Instagram showing the X-ray that revealed two fracture points in the bone, accompanied by the following words:
Double broken jaw. Give me Canelo in 10 days.
Anthony Joshua, for his part, admitted that he had not delivered a great performance and praised the former YouTuber for giving his all and for repeatedly getting back up and continuing to fight. He then issued a challenge to his longtime rival Tyson Fury, whom he will most likely face in 2026, sending him the following message:
If Tyson Fury is as serious as he thinks he is, and he wants to put down his Twitter fingers and put on some gloves and come and fight … step in the ring with me next.
While many understandably believe that the two English heavyweights are now in the declining phase of their careers and that a showdown between them would be far less appealing than it would have been a few years ago, it would still be a far more interesting event than what we witnessed in Miami.