Jake Paul walked into the ring as a YouTuber-turned-boxer to fight Anthony Joshua. Joshua is an Olympic gold medalist heavyweight boxer who has won every title there is in his weight class and has only lost four times in his 18-year career. All the boxing enthusiasts thought there was only one way this was going to go. Except Paul.
In the end, it turns out everyone was right — including Paul’s jaw, which was almost punched out of his skull by a right hook from Joshua for a finishing knockout. The entire six rounds were an exercise in inevitability, with Paul doing his best to hop around the ring, trying to procrastinate the inevitable for as long as he could. The bout was showcased on the ever-growing Netflix, so more people were tuned in than usual. Even people who know nothing about boxing were on X expressing how much Paul looked out of his depth.
i dont know much about boxing. is it normal to hug a person's legs for half the fight like a charles dickens orphan begging for soup?
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) December 20, 2025
But if there’s some glee in the commentary floating around Paul’s loss, it’s not just because people are jaded with his success. He’s been courting controversy his entire public life. On YouTube, he would post vlogs, and on one occasion when he met an Arab person, he made fun of his accent and said he sounded like he was about to blow something up. He has also made multiple anti-Mexican sentiments on his channel.
It’s not that Paul is necessarily a racist — that’s unclear. He’s just a rabble-rouser. So much so that when he was walking to the ring last night, he wore Hulk Hogan’s gear not to honor the flawed wrestling legend, but rather to be the “villain” of the night. And sometimes villains do, in fact, win — but only if their skills match the task at hand. Joshua was leaps and bounds the better fighter on the night.
Netflix did the due diligence of posting the final blow in slow motion on their official X page, and there were jokes galore in the comments. Paul later posted a picture of the X-ray of his broken jaw, defiantly stating that he’s ready for another fight with an active boxer who is in his prime. Usually, Paul fought retired boxers in their 60s, like Mike Tyson, so understandably most people in the boxing world saw him as a semi-pro with a huge audience. But it seems now he wants to take it a bit seriously. Considering this was his first real fight, he might want to reconsider this career tangent.
The moment Anthony Joshua knocked Jake Paul out! #JakeJoshua pic.twitter.com/TiP0ovbpzf
— Netflix (@netflix) December 20, 2025
Double broken jaw. Give me Canelo in 10 days. pic.twitter.com/8R8NK4OeUv
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) December 20, 2025
Paul confirmed he has already gone through surgery to fix his jaw. He told reporters, “Two titanium plates on each side. Some teeth removed… Everything went smooth. Lots of pain and stiffness. Gotta eat liquids for seven days.”
But there is an upside for the multi-hyphenated boxer despite losing to Joshua. Reportedly, he made as much as $90 million despite his resounding loss in front of the world. Not bad for his first real fight.
As for Anthony Joshua, he’s reportedly eyeing a fight with his actual peer Tyson Fury in the near future.
