"How good is Jake Paul as a boxer?" This tends to be a common refrain from those who are aware of the YouTuber-turned-pugilist but not invested enough in either his individual fortunes or indeed the sport in general to find out for themselves.
In truth, the answer is probably rather more nuanced than those who either love him or loathe him would have you believe and unfortunately we will again be no closer to finding out a definitive answer to the question on Friday night.
Leaving aside his tiresome bravado, constant call-outs of genuine and current boxing superstars like the great Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez and unwavering insistence that he is on a journey to eventual world championship glory, Paul undeniably deserves huge credit for his progress in the ring so far.
To go from a complete novice to the level he currently finds himself at in the space of a little over four years is a considerable achievement that simply cannot happen without an insatiable work ethic and the utmost commitment being applied on a daily basis.
Paul does also evidently carry power in his right hand, but obviously mitigated by the fact that so far it's mostly been detonated - admittedly to often devastating effect - on a succession of ageing former MMA stars and, in his early days, fellow YouTubers and even an ex-basketball player to compile a misleading 10-1 professional record with seven often highlight-reel knockouts.
Paul once took great offence to promoter and now adversary Eddie Hearn describing his talents as "average", something that the Matchroom chief - who has more recently been in a legal battle with the American - insisted he meant as a compliment given where he had started from.
But how can he realistically be labelled as anything else when he continues to completely refuse to tread and reject the conventional boxing path that would provide the most accurate test of his progress?
"When can we expect you to start fighting legitimate contending fighters in your weight class?" one reporter asked the so-called 'Problem Child' at Wednesday's final press conference before his controversial showdown with Mike Tyson in Texas, to be broadcast live on Netflix.
Paul again bristled at the familiar inquiry by calling the journalist in question "a dumbass" and insisting that he was disrespecting an all-time great in Tyson by suggesting he was not a serious opponent.
But it's a question that he simply cannot run from if he ever wants to gain any respect in proper boxing circles as anything more than a circus act who has successfully spearheaded a commendably lucrative and popular spin-off version of the sport belonging more in the realms of entertainment but can never hope to be taken seriously by the traditionalists.
Whether he likes it or not, Paul cannot escape the fact that the only time he has come up against a properly trained professional boxer to date, he came quickly unstuck - in last year's money-spinning showdown with arch-rival Tommy Fury in Saudi Arabia, where he was deservedly defeated via split decision.
And without wishing to denigrate the younger half-brother of Tyson, Fury has shown preciously little in his own short pro career to date to suggest that he himself will ever be anything more than a competent fighter at best and many believe was very fortunate to subsequently scrape a decision win over an even less experienced YouTuber-turned-boxer in KSI in Manchester last October.
Paul will no doubt point to his emphatic first-round knockouts of hand-picked opponents in Andre August and Ryan Bourland - sandwiched between two more predictable fights with MMA veterans in Nate Diaz and Mike Perry - as evidence of his ability to not just mix it with and beat but actually dominate legitimate boxers, but that argument simply cannot stand up to any scrutiny whatsoever when you consider that between them the virtually unknown pair had just two fights to their name since 2018.
Paul cannot escape the fact that the only time he has come up against a properly trained professional boxer, he came quickly unstuck
And he will repeatedly point to Tyson's storied history as one of the greatest and most feared heavyweights ever to don a pair of gloves, while wilfully neglecting to dwell on the frankly ludicrous 31-year age gap between the pair that has seen staunch critics deride Friday's contest - delayed for four months after Tyson's health scare - as nothing more than a freak show and a farce that should never have been allowed to come to pass.
Tyson is unlikely to be a pushover of course and has kept himself in phenomenal shape, but what else are we really going to learn about Paul's improvements or lack thereof while fighting a man knocking on the door of 60 in what promises to be an utterly bizarre spectacle that will absolutely fly by in just eight two-minute rounds?
The answer is quite simply nothing, and the long wait for him to finally begin walking a more recognised path to boxing legitimacy will continue.
