Everyone is expecting Jake Paul to get wrecked when he fights two time unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on December 19th, but some are taking it even further: they think Paul may die in the ring.
Boxing is no joke, even if it’s treated that way by some these days. There’s usually 10 to 20 deaths a year attributed to boxing matches, and one event in August saw two fighters die from subdural hematomas. So when we have a fighter like Jake Paul — who has carefully crafted his resume off the back of non-boxers and over-the-hill names — stepping in against a real deal like Anthony Joshua, should we be worried?
“If you’re Nakisa [Bidarian, MVP co-owner] and Jake and his team, you could die in the ring,” Ariel Helwani said while discussing the fight announcement. “Let’s be real. You could die in the ring. Are you making a huge mistake?”
“Look what [Joshua] did to [Ngannou], I will never forget that Francis fight,” he continued. “I will never forget being there and looking at Francis Ngannou who had never been rocked, knocked down, or knocked out cold, like, cold, and he was not moving for what seemed like an eternity. Ultimately, it was like a minute.”
“That was a scare, and that’s Francis freaking Ngannou.”
Mirror Sports editor N. Martin Domin went so far as to ask Bidarian whether Paul was “prepared to die in the ring.”
“Does he go into this fight accepting that if Anthony Joshua catches him badly — and it happens, as you said, in fights that are considered more legitimate,” Domin said.
“This is a very legitimate fight,” Bidarian said flatly. “I don’t think we’ve thought about Jake Paul dying in the ring. No. And we’re not we’re not thinking about that as a potential outcome.”
“Paul has always had delusions of grandeur as a novice pro,” Guardian columnist Donald McRae wrote. “But even boxing may have to consider its own culpability should Paul be badly hurt and end up in hospital after this fully sanctioned bout with regulation 10oz gloves is held in Miami.”
Former unified cruiserweight champ David Haye had similar thoughts.
“[Joshua] is a real athlete who is gonna inflict some horrendous damage to Jake Paul,” Haye told Sky News. “And I hope we’ve got a referee in there who’s quite compassionate, because if Jake Paul is left up against the ropes with Anthony Joshua unloading on him, it could be the end for him, literally. It could be his last day on earth.”
“In reality, it shouldn’t go ahead. There’s no reason for it to. If you’re a commission and your job is to look after the fighters … the reason why they’re there is so the fighters are protected. But in this in this situation, Jake Paul’s so valuable to the whole infrastructure of boxing. Everybody involved is gonna earn five to ten times more than they would on any other night of their life.”
The odds are high that Paul loses, and high that he gets knocked out. The odds, at least statistically in the sport, are that he’ll live. But taking a massive blow to the head like Joshua unleashed on Ngannou last year would certainly be bad for Paul’s health.
