Jake Paul may be a massive underdog heading into his fight against Anthony Joshua on Friday but he’s certainly not lacking confidence.
The 28-year-old YouTuber turned boxer has tasted almost nothing but success since putting all his attention towards combat sports as a full-time profession but he’s also never faced a challenge as daunting as the person he’s about to share the ring with him. Joshua is an Olympic gold medal winner and former heavyweight champion with 28 wins on his resume including 25 by knockout.
But Paul sees nothing but flaws in his upcoming opponent and declared when it comes to the sweet science, he’s actually far better than Joshua.
“On paper, the cards are stacked against me but really in terms of boxing, I’m a better boxer than [Anthony Joshua], which is hilarious to say,” Paul said during a media roundtable on Tuesday night. “But he’s got two left feet. He’s stiff. If I was his coach, I’d put him in a dance class first before trying to box.
“[I’m] really just bringing in the right sparring partners to help me prepare so that I can get looks that are similar to him and that’s really been the strategy. But I’m just going to go in there and display all my skills.”
While Joshua’s biggest wins have come against fighters like Wladimir Klitschko, Joseph Parker and Dillian Whyte, the name that Paul keeps hearing leading into this matchup is former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou.
After surprising the entire world with his performance against Tyson Fury, which included a third-round knockdown, Ngannou was brimming with self-belief that he could win his second professional fight against Joshua.
The exact opposite happened after Joshua dismantled him inside two round and delivered a jaw-dropping knockout that folded Ngannou in half to end the fight. Joshua stated numerous teams leading up to the fight that he had no intention of allowing Ngannou to walk away with the same kind of success he found against Fury so the British bomber just put him away in lopsided fashion.
That win drew a lot of eyeballs but Paul just doesn’t see how Ngannou compares to him in any way, shape or form as he prepares to face the same task against Joshua on Friday.
“I just look at how bad of a boxer Francis is,” Paul said. “Stuck in mud and just sitting there to get hit. Just a completely different fighter. It does nothing.
“I’ve experienced it myself fighting smaller guys. You can’t load up all your power because you don’t know where they’re going to be to hit them. It’s all these boxing geniuses on Twitter that have never stepped foot in a boxing ring.”
Of course, Paul has already heard the chorus of accusations that him winning points to the fight being rigged because there’s no way he could legitimately beat Joshua in the ring.
Paul and his attorneys have started to seek legal action against anybody making serious claims that he’s competing in fixed fights but he’s actually relishing the fact so many people doubt his abilities that paying off Joshua is the only way he could win.
“I don’t give a f*ck about what these people are saying,” Paul said. “They’re always going to have some excuse. I take it as the deepest compliment that they chalk up what I’m doing to being rigged, fake fights — that’s how incredible and the level I’m on and the amazing things that I’m doing, they can only chalk it up to this fake storyline and he’s paying them hundreds of millions of dollars to take a dive. I take that as a compliment.”
Before the Joshua fight got made, Paul was scheduled to face Gervonta “Tank” Davis in a true David vs. Goliath matchup. Paul towered over his much smaller opponent with Davis spending the majority of his career competing around 135 pounds.
Now Paul is dealing with similar odds as he gets on his tippy toes just trying to go eye-to-eye with Joshua during faceoffs. But he believes winning as the underdog makes this whole entire situation that much better.
“This is the biggest upset in sports history that’s about to take place on Friday,” Paul said. “When I win, my Instagram caption the day after was going to be heavyweight champion of the world. If this fight was a couple months ago, I’d be the heavyweight champion of the world. Before [Daniel] Dubois [beat Anthony Joshua].
“I’m just getting warmed up. I’ll become the heavyweight champ, cruiserweight champ, whatever.”
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