Jake Paul is not a boxing innocent. He didn't wander into this Anthony Joshua fight unaware of the potential to be hit in a way he'd never experienced. The risk was the selling point. The perversity of this mad theatre. What should've been more widely anticipated was the fight being a shambles.
Anthony Joshua finally landed a proper heavyweight punch, the type he used to throw with out thinking about the risk too long, the type that knocked out good, if not great, heavyweights during his time as the preeminent big man. In a melange of knockdowns, counted and uncounted, that no observer has the time of inclination to document, an end was finally drawn to the pantomime in the 6th.
Jake Paul, astonishingly, was not knocked out, not in the consciousness removed manner widely predicted before the fight and he deserves credit for creating the event out of five years of hot air and notoriety and, well, just showing up. But the look on his face, a type of happy incredulity, when Joshua belatedly landed a clean right hand spoke to the difference he discovered between boxing novices, transferring MMA veterans, geriatrics and an elite puncher still dangerous in the embers of his own prime.
In the spectacle that preceded it, Paul visited the canvas more times than Jackson Pollack. It was frustrating to watch as the younger man scuttled around the ring, launching occasional lunges forward. A jab in one round and a right hand with some hiss on it were the sum total of his success. It was an abject spectacle.
Joshua was frustrated, lacking the speed of hand or the fluidity to capture the retreating interloper in a corner and was reduced to throwing punches he knew wouldn't land. There was a moment, somewhere in the third of fourth, with the booing commonplace if not yet unanimous, the referee urging them to improve on the "crap" they were serving to a paying public, when the possibility of Joshua not getting the job done began to manifest.
I think Joshua felt that horror. In a crisis, Joshua no longer punches his way out of it. He smiles, he frowns, the confusion, the embarrassment, the memory of preceding defeats is writ large on his face.
The two of them became locked in a peculiar dance. One terrified of the other, the other terrified of expectation. In the build up, most students of the sport could only countenance a swift, decisive conclusion. Perhaps unaware of the football field sized ring and undoubtedly forgetting the indecision and over-think that sometimes submerges Joshua's physical gifts beneath a sea of inertia. It is an aggressive condition that began in the aftermath of the Klitschko fight and accelerated in the loss to Andy Ruiz and rampant by the time he lost to Usyk twice and Dubois demolished him in 2024. As a result, opponents have been curated to present stiff, tall and modestly equipped challenges to afford Joshua time, to not ask him difficult questions in the ring and, primary, motionless target to hit.
This Paul abomination served its purpose for him. Crucially, walking Joshua through the PTSD that appears to now inhabit and inhibit him. Collecting a vast financial reward - he will never tire of the accumulation of wealth, few fighters can - was also the real motivating force.
It will not quieten that voice of doubt that invades much of what he does or the naysayers who watch and see a faded force stripped of the instinct and valour of his youth. Whether his advising group, which now features members of Team Usyk in his corner, permit him to face a genuine contender in the Spring and risk the mooted Fury fight remains to be seen. He would benefit from the test. But he could lose.
For Paul, his reputation, such as it is, will sustain for longer yet, though where he can conceivably go after this is difficult to speculate on. He would still lose to any competent Cruiserweight and most Light-Heavyweights. Without ability, with out size, with crumbs of technique he cannot go far.
But his following and balls the size of space hoppers will ensure more madness is yet to come.
Many of us will need a little time to forget Friday's Rocky Horror show.