If Christmas is a time for giving, let us give the benefit of considerable doubt to Jake Paul ahead of his eight-round boxing match against Anthony Joshua this Friday – our gift to him.
We don’t have the ability to give him the win, that is asking too much, but we can at the very least pretend to believe in miracles and soften our stance in the name of Christmas spirit. We can imagine for one second a world in which Paul belongs in the ring with Joshua in 2025. We can even imagine him landing punches, winning rounds, and shocking the world. We must do all that because it is Christmastime, yes, but also because it is happening, the fight. We are resigned to it. There is no stopping it.
Now, just to get through it, we need to smile and play along. No different, perhaps, than a parent sitting down with their child and reassuring them about the existence of Santa, we must give Jake Paul, 12-1 (7 KOs), what he wants to hear; what comforts him; what helps him sleep at night. Even if nothing we say is based in any sort of reality or logic, still it is nice to see the hope in his eyes. Still it is nice to give someone that at a time like this.
1) It’s only eight rounds
The duration of the fight has no bearing on the result, that’s true, but still there is something comforting – from Paul’s perspective – to know he has only eight rounds in the company of Joshua. To actually win, he will have to either knock Joshua out in one of those eight rounds, or win more of them than Joshua does, yet that’s not really the point here. Should Paul even go the distance – the full eight rounds – he will have exceeded all expectations and secured a victory of sorts. In truth, it’s perhaps the best kind of victory available to Paul, one that if offered to him today he would surely grab with both hands.
2) Complacency
Only those close to Joshua will know how serious he has taken this strange assignment on Friday, but even if the physical preparation is a solid, tangible thing, the same cannot be said for a boxer’s mental preparation. Meaning, even if Joshua has managed to convince himself that Jake Paul is no less a threat than Daniel Dubois, Wladimir Klitschko and Oleksandr Usyk, no amount of tactical bluffing will change what he really thinks and knows deep down in his bones. Those thoughts, all-pervading, will stay with him and travel with him to the arena on the night. They will be with him when he enters the ring and when he looks down at Jake Paul during the referee’s introductions. They will also be present in the sly grin he offers Paul and in the hard touch of gloves to follow. Is this really happening? he will think at that point. Am I really this lucky?
3) He should feel no pressure
Nobody expects Jake Paul to win and nobody outside his team thinks he will. In other words, the American has a free shot at Joshua here, with the only pressure he is likely to feel brought on by himself and everything he has said about Joshua – and boxing as a whole – in recent years. If nothing else, this sense of freedom should make Paul a little lighter in the shoulders and on his feet and should allow him to go for it and see if he can hit the Joshua chin at some stage between rounds one and eight. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?
4) Joshua is a thinker
Perhaps the best thing for Anthony Joshua would be to enter the ring against Jake Paul on Friday and not think but just do. Chances are, should he do that, there won’t be much that Jake Paul can do in response except pick himself up and brush himself down. On the flipside, however, if Joshua plays with his food too much, or thinks too much about the absurdity of what is taking place, he risks giving Paul both survival time and a chance. For Paul, that would be ideal, of course. Having studied him, he will know that Joshua, for all his talent, has a propensity to get stuck in his own head and start to doubt himself if (a) he hasn’t made a significant dent in his opponent, or (b) is watching the rounds tick by with no sign of a finish. Get him into that kind of territory and you just never know.
5) Paul is ignorant and deluded
To even contemplate getting in the ring and fighting other men for a living requires a certain level of instability and in Paul we have seen evidence of this from the very beginning. Not only did he want to fight when he had no need to, but he claimed, with a straight face, that he was good at it and that he would make something of it. This then led to callouts of various world champions, all of whom would have finished him in a round or two, and a slow creep up the world rankings. Suddenly now, in 2025, Paul has both a world ranking and a former world champion in his sights. Now, either his ignorance and delusion will be the thing that takes him to places most sane individuals would never dare to go, or, and more likely, it ends up being the thing that destroys him.
6) Paul has improved as a boxer
Though it is often said begrudgingly, still it is being said: Jake Paul is getting better. No, he isn’t getting better in a title-winning sense, but there is certainly a feeling that the Jake Paul of today is a considerably more rounded and serious boxer than the one we first watched back in 2020. This version we see today boasts a composure he lacked at the start. This version knows which punches to throw and does a decent job of throwing them. This version is fit and athletic enough to beat old champions whose fitness and athleticism have, along with their ambition, in recent years betrayed them.
7) Joshua’s last fight ended in defeat
Not only has Joshua been out of the ring since September 2024, but the last time we saw him in action he was knocked out in round five of a fight against Daniel Dubois. That, as far as form goes, is hardly ideal and no doubt there will be a few mental demons for Joshua to overcome as a result of that loss. Yet Joshua, of course, will likely suggest that there can be no greater “comeback” fight than an eight-rounder against an influencer-cruiserweight way out of his league, live on Netflix. He could be right, too. This, in effect, is the world’s most lucrative tune-up/rebound fight.
8) Paul is short and Joshua must be light
If you want to argue that Paul’s size in this fight is a disadvantage which will conspire to make him a sitting duck for Joshua’s jab and right cross, you won’t hear a counterargument from me. However, if one intends to play devil’s advocate, one might propose that being the smaller man, especially at heavyweight, is not always a bad thing. For proof, one only has to recall the damage Andy Ruiz Jnr was able to do to Joshua when they met in New York in 2019. That night Ruiz’s shorter stature allowed him to get inside of Joshua’s punches during many frantic exchanges and was what ultimately contributed to the Londoner’s demise.
As for weight, Joshua hasn’t seen 245 pounds - the contracted weight limit for this eight-rounder against Paul - since fighting Oleksandr Usyk in 2022. He has in the past three and a bit years weighed anything between 250 and 255 pounds before a fight and is, at the age of 36, much happier north of 250 than south of it. In short, he will presumably have a tougher time getting down to 245 for Thursday’s weigh-in than he will when using that weight to do damage to Paul the following day.
9) Joshua has to win and win well
While it is accepted that there is a 99.9% chance that he will win, Joshua still must go out there and do it on Friday. He can’t just turn up, shake hands, and walk away with a victory he has been told is inevitable and rightfully his. Instead, he must find the punches to finish Paul and he must make them good ones. He must also get this thing over and done with quickly and with minimal fuss, which, in a boxing ring, is sometimes easier said than done. In fact, even the mere expectation of a quick finish can occasionally cause problems should the favourite be prone to panicking and feeling the weight of anticipation.
10) It’s Christmas!
If ever there is a time to suspend our disbelief and expect the unexpected, it is now, a week from Christmas. According to lore, miracles tend to happen at Christmastime and this, combined with the fact that upsets happen in boxing, makes the timing of Jake Paul fighting Anthony Joshua interesting to say the least. You suspect that if it is ever going to happen for Paul, it is now, at a time when children all around the world believe a fat, bearded man in a red suit is preparing to squeeze down their chimney to deposit presents bearing name tags with handwriting curiously similar to their parents’.
