Joshua’s $80M Gamble: Is Jake Paul About to End His Career?

The public believes Anthony Joshua is putting his career at risk and the potential for future fights with his bout next month against Jake Paul. Aside from the $80 million+ that Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) is expected to get for the eight-round contest against Paul (12-1, 7 KOs), he could be throwing away his future.

Joshua is going to be at a disadvantage against Paul in their eight-round, Netflix-streamed fight on December 19th at the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida.

AJ’s problems:

• 245-lb catchweight: Joshua has to lose weight for this fight to compete at the catchweight. He hasn’t fought below 250 pounds since his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk in 2022. Joshua lost that fight and looked weak.
• Punch resistance: At 36, Joshua’s chin is effectively gone, as he showed in his knockout loss to Daniel Dubois in September 2024. Before that defeat, Joshua had done a good job with the help of his promoter, Eddie Hearn, to disguise his weakened mandible by fighting soft opposition. Now, going up against the short but powerful Jake Paul, AJ is going to be at risk. There will be no protection in this fight. He’s out in the wild in this contest.

All it’ll take for the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua is to turn a lackluster effort into being forced to go the full eight rounds for it to cause his stock to plummet further. He’s already coming off a fifth-round knockout loss to Daniel Dubois, a little over a year ago.

An underwhelming performance against the YouTuber-turned-boxer Paul or a knockout defeat would ruin these chances for the long-awaited fight against Tyson Fury. At 36, it would be impossible for Joshua to come back from a loss or a poor showing against Jake to salvage what promoter Eddie Hearn calls the ‘Battle of Britain’ against ‘The Gypsy King’ Fury.

There will be a lot of fans coming out of the woodwork afterward, saying, ‘I told you so’ when Joshua loses to Paul.