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Jake Paul's mouth gaped wide open, his eyes becoming wide, stunned circles as he sank to the mat in stunned disbelief following a devastating right hand from Anthony Joshua. It appeared as if Paul was trying to say "Wow!" as the force of the impact registered to his rattled senses.

"The fans didn't spend money to see this rubbish," snapped the referee, encapsulating the sorry spectacle much more effectively than anyone else could.

Pinned in a neutral corner of the ring midway through the sixth round, Paul could not retreat or hold on to Joshua's legs in a desperate clinch as the gravity of boxing enveloped him. Instead, as he tried to absorb the punch that fractured his mandible in two separate places, Paul was caught in an completely stunned moment.

So that is what it feels, and looks, to be hit hard by a real boxer, an Olympic champion and former world heavyweight champion. "Goodness" is certainly the appropriate term.

It was the fourth time the former YouTuber had been sent to the floor, but the result of a proper power shot ensured Paul could not rise and taunt his opponent before the referee waved the charade to a halt. As blood began to leak from his mouth, and a numbing throb spread through his jaw, Paul finally grasped how hard, grueling, and dangerous boxing is at a respectable standard of professionalism.

A Far From Impressive Victory for Joshua

Joshua, it should be stressed, was far from convincing during the chaos. After his hollow victory, he made a throat-slitting gesture that hinted at a clinical and lethal execution when, in truth, Joshua had appeared exasperated for the majority of the fight. Rather than glowering with menace or displaying an unshakeable confidence, Joshua had appeared tentative and crude for almost five rounds.

Paul's poor fitness, which is a basic essential in elite boxing, shaped the outcome. Lacking the stamina to escape any more, and reduced to falling to the deck as frequently as he could for a rest, Paul was rendered defenseless by exhaustion. Joshua delivered the brutal ending, but, until then, he had seemed a sad shadow of the fighter he had been in 2017.

Joshua's Aftermath Comments

"It wasn't the best performance," Joshua conceded. "The objective was to catch Jake Paul, pin him down and do damage. That has been the plan, and that's what was on my thoughts. It took a little more time than expected, but the right hand eventually reached its target."

Joshua praised Paul's courage but he added an excuse for his own labored performance. "He came up against a genuine competitor tonight that's had a 15-month layoff," Joshua said, mentioning his previous defeat. "We shook off the cobwebs, and I can't wait to roll into 2026."

The Future: Past Their Prime and New Talent

In the post-fight interview afterwards, a cheerful Joshua attempted a poor imitation of Tyson Fury as he demanded a scrap against the currently retired boxer. Joshua will probably get his wish, but that matchup comes much too late in their careers. Both fighters are on the downward slope of the hill.

In contrast, the most interesting heavyweights in the world remain Oleksandr Usyk and Moses Itauma. Usyk remains the undoubted king of the weight class, after defeating both Joshua and Fury on two occasions. At the same time, Itauma is a rising talent. The young British heavyweight likely have needed fewer than half the number of three-minute periods that Joshua needed to knock Paul into a appropriately wowed state.

The Defeated Fighter's Unbowed Response

But the fans gets what the public wants, and that certainly means additional low-quality crossover fights. Paul seemed genuinely satisfied and brash to have had his mandible fractured by a sledgehammer right. In the early hours of the next day, he shared an X-ray, with the pair of breaks marked in crimson.

That lighthearted nod to the Mexican superstar, a far greater fighter than Joshua but a similarly diminished presence, demonstrated that Paul's brazen audacity remains undented. It might not be Canelo, but Paul will shortly find someone else with whom he can make more than $50 million.

While he was being interviewed, before departing to the hospital, Paul spat a tracer of blood onto the ring floor. It was another grim symbol of the night as Paul mixed blunt truth with gory bullshit and stated: "I believe my jaw is broken. It's certainly broke. A nice little beating from one of the best to ever step in the ring. I adore this sport and I'm going to come back and continue winning."