Jake Paul might survive a fight with Anthony Joshua, but can his career?
Unsurprisingly, Joshua, a two-time heavyweight boxing champion, is widely favored to defeat Paul when the two meet in the ring at Kaseya
Center in Miami on Friday. Joshua has 25 knockout wins to his name, a figure that is almost twice as many as the number of fights Paul has on his résumé (13). He’ll also enter the contest as the much bigger man if one needed more reason to wager against Paul.
Former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping gave his prediction for the fight on his YouTube channel and he’s less concerned about whether Joshua can avoid an upset than he is about whether he might beat Paul so badly that Paul decides he’s done with boxing.
“It’s a real fight and if it is, this is ridiculous,” Bisping said. “This is absolute nonsense, but especially when you hear Anthony Joshua say, ‘If he dies, he dies.’ ‘If I can kill him, I’ll kill him.’ … Sometimes when you get beaten, yeah, he might not have long-term injuries. He might not have his brain scrambled. He might not even get knocked out, but he might get beaten up so badly that he never wants to step foot in a boxing ring again. I’m telling you, that is the loneliest place on the planet.”
Bisping understands that Paul agreeing to fight the far more experienced Joshua makes sense on paper as Paul has frequently stated his goal is to become a world champion in boxing; however, any respect Paul has earned from signing on for a previously inconceivable matchup won’t mean anything if he ends up getting badly hurt—or worse.
“Yes, if he wins, incredible,” Bisping said. “Wow, what a story. The biggest upset in the history of combat sports, right? It would be. I would be insane. But if he loses, well he’s got nothing to lose because the man’s shown gigantic balls. Wow, what a guy, right? He’s going to step in there against Anthony Joshua. This guy doesn’t care.
“Well, that’s all well and good as long as No. 1, you don’t die. Secondly, you don’t have brain damage. Thirdly, what about if you just get knocked out? What if you get knocked out so bad and beaten up so badly you never want to step foot in a ring ever again?”
Paul, for the most part, has avoided any major damage in his brief boxing career. The 28-year-old and his team have wisely picked their opposition so far, including racking up victories over older MMA stars, and Paul’s only loss was an uneventful split call against reality television show star Tommy Fury (the half-brother of heavyweight boxing great Tyson Fury).
But just because Paul has kept himself out of serious danger this long doesn’t mean he’s invincible. Bisping thinks there’s an excellent chance his luck finally runs out Friday.
“In fights like this in the boxing world, stuff can go wrong,” Bisping said. “You can only punch to the head. This isn’t mixed martial arts and Anthony Joshua hits really hard. A kind of power that Jake Paul does not know what he’s getting himself in for. It’s as simple as that.”
“You don’t play at boxing,” he added. “You have to respect boxing and you have to respect the consequences, the weight classes, the rules, and just what it takes. Fair play to Jake Paul because this is a very dangerous thing that he is doing. I hope he makes it out of the ring on the other side OK. I hope he has no long-term injuries because I’ll tell you what, there is a very good, serious chance that something goes wrong here. It’s crazy that this has even been sanctioned in the first place. This is very, very dangerous.”
