We have to talk about the odds. -1200 on DraftKings? Per OddsJam’s Implied Probability Calculator, a mere 92.31 per cent chance of an Anthony Joshua victory over Jake Paul on December 19? Do the bookmakers think Joshua is somehow fighting a reincarnated Jake LaMotta? He is, as we know all too well, fighting Jake Paul: a professional boxer steeled in childhood not by the sweaty boxing gym, but by YouTube and social media algorithms.
Paul is a known quantity as a boxer. He’s better than you might expect but nothing that leaps off the screen. He loves to fight UFC fighters in the boxing ring, or men who were once real boxers and are now grandpas or have been washed by a mere decade or so. Paul picking Anthony Joshua as an opponent was so startling that many are already assuming the fight is fixed (more on that in a bit).
Wherever Paul’s level as a professional boxer is, it’s a few miles underneath that of the man known as “AJ.” Joshua may not be the best heavyweight in the world, but he has seldom been worse than fourth or fifth for the past decade and change. He has a stiff jab and a pure, pulverizing right hand that has floored opponents from Francis Ngannou to Dillian Whyte to Alexander Povetkin. Losses to Oleksandr Usyk said more about the great Usyk than Joshua; losses to Andy Ruiz and Daniel Dubois were symptomatic of larger issues, but nothing that adds up to Paul having a 7.69 per cent chance to avoid defeat.
So what gives? Here, a few theories.
People think the fight is fixed
Fairly or not, the stench of suspicion has followed Paul throughout his professional boxing career. He has cherry-picked his opponents; might that chicanery extend to rigging the fights themselves? Julio Cesar Chavez Jnr barely threw a punch through seven rounds of his June summit with Paul, only to fight coherently in the final couple stanzas – and have success while doing it – raised some eyebrows. Why wait so long to step on the gas? And Mike Tyson looking like the 58-year-old he was against Paul late last year left some naive viewers who had been expecting a prime “Iron Mike” thinking the fix was in.
There’s no proof for these allegations, mind you. But Paul has conducted his career safely and cynically enough that serving himself up on a silver platter for Joshua to knock out feels out of character. Perhaps that’s harsh on Paul, who appears to be doing just that. Still, maybe the oddsmakers are keeping in mind the possibility that the man who made millions beating up a grandfather on Netflix would only fight a beast like Joshua with assurance that he’d hear the final bell while conscious.
Joshua has to make 245lbs
What we do know the contract includes is a clause insisting Joshua must weigh in at under 245lbs. (Once he does that, he can enter the ring at any weight he likes.) Joshua has hit the scales at between 250 and 256lbs for his last five fights. Five pounds doesn’t represent a significant percentage of Joshua’s total body weight. But it’s not nothing, either. Joshua isn’t used to having to cut weight, and even if he were, at 36 years old, it would prove a more difficult task than before.
According to a recent Joshua social media post, he’s already under 245. But there’s an ever-so-slight chance that shaving off the weight will hurt Joshua’s performance enough for Paul to be competitive. Theoretically.
Lots of people are betting on Jake Paul
Hey, enough people bet on Mike Tyson to shift the odds. Paul is +700 on DraftKings, a pretty nice payout if you believe he has a chance.
Joshua is just shot in general
Let’s not forget what happened to AJ his last time out: Daniel Dubois absolutely ran over him. Joshua hit the deck four times and had his lights violently switched out by Dubois’ cleanest counter-right hand. (Even before Dubois’ overhand right dropped Joshua for the first time, AJ looked stiff and slow in the ring and made elementary defensive mistakes.) That’s not something a boxer typically fights through without suffering a meaningful decline. Dubois wasn’t even the first to knock AJ out – that honor goes to Andy Ruiz in 2019, who also dropped Joshua four times.
Plenty of opponents AJ went on to beat – Wladimir Klitschko, Whyte, Povetkin – dropped or rocked him to his boots first. Joshua has also admitted that Dubois “cracked me with a great shot” in a long-ago sparring session. Who knows what other punches he’s taken in behind the scenes. My point is this: Joshua never had an iron chin at the best of times, and that chin has been cracked a lot, maybe even more than we realize. He also hasn’t fought since Dubois splattered him. The Paul fight will come after 15 months of inactivity, the longest layoff of Joshua’s professional career. (Paul is 28 and has taken all of zero truly damaging shots in his pro career.)
Could the decline we’ve seen already and the possibility of a larger one lurking, in conjunction with the weight limit, account for Joshua being a -1200 favorite instead of -12000? Sure, I could see that.
Even if the Joshua who enters the ring on December 19 is a far cry from his 2018 self – and I expect that to be the case – a post-prime and even a shot “AJ” still deserves to be heavily favored over Paul, as he is.
