Joey’s Corner: Paul vs AJ is the end of the world and I feel fine

Jake Paul takes on Anthony Joshua this Friday, December 19 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida. Paul’s name is first on the billing because he has over 20 million YouTube subscribers and former world champion AJ does not. Welcome to the new world.

Netflix, the streaming platform that brought you Emily in Paris and Jingle Bell Heist, will broadcast boxing’s most talked-about event since Paul beat up an ailing pensioner. Find out why I’m relaxed about this most bizarre of concepts in this week’s Joey’s Corner.

Anyone who has read one of my Jake Paul fight previews knows what I think of the influencer’s participation in professional boxing. A “blonde-coiffed chancer” who is guilty of “cherry-picking aging opponents or MMA refugees” is among my nicer assessments. “Social media gobshite” is not.

I understand I am guilty of an old-school attitude to the sport. While I am the same age as Anthony Joshua, my tastes in the sweet science skew older. A James Toney or Marvin Hagler fight film does more for me than many of the current crop. But I also appreciate beauty in modernity. Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez is a marvel. Naoya Inoue is an utter thrill. Fabio Wardley is a throwback that satisfies my traditionalist heart. I love this sport; the good, the bad and the ugly.

Boxing is rarely more grotesque than when Paul puts on the gloves. I was mostly willing to wave away his work as boxing-adjacent when it was the NBA’s Nate Robinson or UFC relics like Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva he was beating. But then the ‘Problem Child’ started to cause real problems.

The boxing world stopped and stared as he gently out-pointed Mike Tyson, the ghost of ‘Iron’ who was pushing 60 and coming off a life-threatening hospital stay. The WBA ranked him at cruiserweight off the back of a pitiful decision win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, a washed-up ex-champ who has not been relevant since Party Rock was in the house. 

Now Paul was starting to encroach on the sport I love. Influencer boxing does not bother me as it operates largely separate from the mainstream fight game. But now boxing’s decision-makers were beginning to take notice. But the problem was exactly what they were taking notice of.

It was not the ring skills of Paul which, despite a widespread desperation from his fans and stakeholders to claim ‘improvements’ each time he fights, is largely rudimentary. Tommy Fury, a low-ranked professional with a decent enough grasp of boxing’s basics, beat Paul when they fought. There is a reason every other ‘Problem Child’ foe since has either been ancient, inactive, a UFC fighter or all of the above.

It was, as ever in this grubbiest of games, the money that captured hearts and minds within the boxing cognoscenti. Paul sells. I baulk at the suggestion he is a technical boxer of any real aptitude. But I bow to the marketing genius of the man. Jake is a cottage industry all of his own. A multi-millionaire for good reason. Never has a ‘boxer’ done more with less than Jake Paul. Minimal talent, maximum profit.

Which is why I have made peace with Paul’s presence in the fight game. With the very Joshua fight that has major fight figures aching to find the right soundbite with which to take their performative disgust viral. I get it. This fight is an inversion and perversion of everything they hold dear. Everything I hold dear. But it’s still going to f*cking happen isn’t it?

It will draw one of the biggest boxing audiences of the year, with Netflix as ubiquitous as the fridge in the modern home. Because this is the fight they said Jake would never take. Anthony Joshua is 36 years of age, not 56. This man fought for the world heavyweight title just last year. He has held that crown twice, along with Olympic gold. Physically, AJ is built like he wants to make Superman jealous. 

This fight is a work of marketing genius. Paul is fighting the exact type of opponent people like me were certain he would never fight. Those shouts were never louder than when Jake signed to face Gervonta Davis in an exhibition contest that was originally set for last month. The idea of the career cruiserweight facing someone who has never weighed over 140 pounds in a pro fight seemed like peak cherry-picking from the Youtuber.

That fight fell apart due to Davis’ legal issues, so Paul has gone for the nuclear option. One that defies all logic. One that, finally, carries a bit of intrigue. The man in the opposite corner is past his prime, but by a couple of years rather than two or three decades. Joshua is a boxer by trade. One who still has career goals to achieve, namely a fight with British rival Tyson Fury. For the first time in 13 professional fights, Paul is facing somebody who cannot afford to lose.

AJ won’t lose. I’m certain of that. But I feel Paul won’t either, at least in the traditional sense. I used to assume a defeat would be the arrow that punctured the hot bullsh*t balloon that has seen his boxing venture soar. But he lost to Tommy Fury and kept his fetid aircraft afloat. A couple of tokenistic wins over semi-retired club fighters put him firmly back on his deliberately-infuriating game.

I think Paul has a chance to shine here. I do not think this fight is ‘fixed’, despite the public assumptions. But I do think Paul will triumph in defeat. I think carefully-constructed marketing materials and social media posts will emphasise the bravery of Jake. He is brave for taking this fight on and I expect commentary and affiliated media to press that button hard when he loses.

Where is the shame in losing to a man who took UFC titan Francis Ngannou out in two rounds? Who elongated Wladimir Klitschko’s mammoth neck with an uppercut? Who held the heavyweight division in an iron grip a few short years ago? See, I bet you’re all standing up at your desks/on your commute/hopefully not in the toilet, fists raised in deference to Sir Jake Paul, the little knobhead who could. A defeat in this fight is a victory. As the immortal David Brent once opined; “Perception, yeah?”

I don’t hate this fight. I tried, I really did. I hated Paul vs Tyson for the egregious desecration of a legend ill-equipped to defend himself. I hated Paul vs Chavez Jr for reminding me of the existence of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. But this fight makes a modicum of sense. 

AJ was already training for a low-key bout, reportedly in Saudi a couple of weeks back. Paul saw an opportunity to enhance the brand. In this strange-but-forgivable encounter, doing so in defeat would remain a firm victory for the savvy influencer.

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