Add Chael Sonnen to the list of experts who are warning gamblers away from taking a long-shot wager on Jake Paul.
This Friday, Paul steps into the ring with two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua
in a boxing match that is widely expected to end with Joshua knocking Paul out cold. Paul has been saying all the right things about the matchup, that he’s “ready to die” to beat Joshua, that he expects to finish Joshua in the fifth or sixth round, but none of that talk has been all too convincing to the matchmakers who, perhaps generously, have Paul positioned as a 7-to-1 underdog.
Paul has shown some promise in his brief fighting career, with wins over former UFC stars such as Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley, and has a handful of knockouts as well, but his experience pales in comparison to that of Joshua, who has scored 25 of his 28 pro wins by KO/TKO.
It’s for all of these reasons that Sonnen hopes no one is buying into an old cliché in support of Paul.
“One thing that you have to live with, if you’re a fight fan, you have to live with the expression ‘puncher’s chance,’” Sonnen said on his YouTube channel. “It’s not true and it’s not real and there’s [one] example in your entire lifetime where that applies and you decide whether that was Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson or whether that was George Foreman over Michael Moorer. You decide, but you only get one. And they’ll act as though this puncher’s chance can happen every fight or happens every weekend or is a very realistic thing at any class aside from heavy.
“There’s no truth to it at all. It’s what an idiot says.”
Sonnen’s analysis is somewhat surprising given his years competing in MMA, an industry where almost anything can happen in a fight, but he’s not confident that such an out-of-nowhere outcome can happen in the Jake vs. Joshua match. In fact, even if they were to bend the rules in Paul’s favor, Sonnen still expects Joshua to floor him.
“If they let [Paul] get in there with a shovel, he still wouldn’t get the shovel to Joshua’s head and if he did he wouldn’t generate enough power to knock him out,” Sonnen said.
While Sonnen has respect for how far Paul has come in his fighting career since committing to pro boxing in 2020, he wonders if Paul and his brother Logan—currently a WWE Superstar who has also participated in high-profile boxing matches—may have gone too far with their combat sports aspirations. The brothers became famous as YouTube stars before branching off into their current career paths.
Now, Jake might have played himself.
“There’s one dude who’s in a position to get hurt really bad,” Sonnen said. “He talked himself into a spot and he got the spot and it’s the oldest adage in life, ‘Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.’ And getting to fight in a main event and getting to fight in front of a bunch of people and getting to fight for some money and even getting to fight on TV on an event that Netflix is going to host and that SportsCenter will cover.
“These are all things that you asked for… against Tank Davis. Against a slam dunk champion. Against somebody whose last name is Mayweather—don’t think you have to correct me and tell me which Paul it was, I’m proving a point here—you didn’t really think that you’d be in the main event in front of the world on an event put on Netflix that was going to be covered by SportsCenter with Anthony Joshua. No, you didn’t. You didn’t actually think that. It’s something that manifested, if you will. It’s an opportunity that was presented, if you will, and it’s a very dangerous spot.”
If anything, Sonnen is concerned Joshua may attempt to carry Paul for a few rounds in the service of entertainment. With the bout airing live on Netflix on Friday, it has the potential to draw a massive viewership number, which Paul has proven he can do as he brought a record number of eyeballs to the streaming service for his fight with boxing legend Mike Tyson in November 2024.
Should Joshua draw out the fight, Sonnen thinks it only increases Joshua’s chances of permanently injuring Paul as opposed to Paul landing a lucky punch.
“In this sport, where it’s a piece of business, where you’re bringing in 10s of millions of dollars and you don’t want to give them 30 seconds of entertainment,” Sonnen said. “You feel that you owe the audience a little bit more, that’s where Jake can really get hurt. Joshua goes to the body and moves around. He goes upstairs, but he hits him hard enough, but not quite hard enough to put him down. That’s where he can get hurt. Now, I don’t think that Joshua is that level of scumbag. I don’t think—but it’s not as though I don’t think Joshua’s a scumbag, I do think he’s a scumbag—I don’t think he’s the kind of guy that would hurt and cat-and-mouse his pray because he thinks it’s better for a drunken audience sitting in the second row who he’s never met and is never going to meet. I don’t think he’s that kind of a dirt bag, I think he’s his own kind of dirt bag. But that would be very bad.
“If you’re ever in a fight, and you allow the person to stay in the fight, that is very bad. If you ever try to not knock the guy out when you can knock him out, those are not signs of sportsmanship and those are not kind things. Those are the things that can take actual ages off of somebody’s career and off of their life.”
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VIDEO STEW
Jake vs. Joshua media day, also featuring Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley.
Alexander Volkanovski champ camp.
Look back at a year of upsets.
Aljo goes back to his roots.
FLAVOR IN YOUR EAR
Fighter vs. Writer. MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin talks to Matt Brown about Francis Ngannou’s recent comments and if he might have any regrets about leaving the UFC, plus a breakdown of Friday’s Jake vs. Joshua boxing match.
SOCIAL MEDIA BOUILLABAISSE
The definitive fight week schedule.
Happy anniversary!
Preach.
What is a false equivalence?
Bah humbug.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I know we’re still days away, but I… still can’t believe Jake vs. Joshua is on track to actually happen.
EXIT POLL
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