Roundtable: Should Jake Paul fight again after devastating Anthony Joshua loss?

Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul. It actually happened. And it went pretty much how everyone expected it to.

Both fighters left Miami with fatter bank accounts and a little extra: Joshua earned a knockout victory in front of possibly the largest American audience he’s ever had, and Paul can now say he’s been in the ring with a heavyweight champion that isn’t nearly 60 years old. Oh, and his jaw is also broken.

We know Joshua has his sights set on Tyson Fury (finally?) next, but what about Paul? His pursuit of boxing has taken his profile to another level, and he’s also made a ton of money doing it. No one would blame him if Joshua turned out to be his final opponent, but it doesn’t sound like that will be the case. MMA Fighting’s Damon Martin, Alexander K. Lee, and Jed Meshew put their heads together to figure out what makes sense for Paul if he is truly determined to keep this wild ride going.

1. Should Paul fight again?

Martin: Undoubtedly yes, although coming back from a broken jaw isn’t as easy as his business partner Nakisa Bidarian makes it sound. There are plenty of high-level boxers whose careers were never quite the same after suffering a similar injury, but there’s just too much opportunity out there for Jake Paul to just walk away after a loss like that.

Let’s be honest, this fight was all about Paul trying to prove people wrong about his boxing career after amassing an 11-1 record built around beating up MMA fighters, journeyman boxers, has-beens like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., and a 58-year-old Mike Tyson. He could talk all he wanted about becoming a champion and taking on all challenges, but the only person Paul ever faced with a similar level of experience and skill was Tommy Fury, and he lost that one.

Now it’s likely Paul won’t shut up about how he took a shot at a former heavyweight champion, and while he missed, at least he tried. Not sure how much trying he did by running around the ring for five rounds before gassing out, but that’s the narrative he’ll surely spin.

So yes, Paul will fight again, he’ll talk about becoming a world champion, and how Joshua’s size was the biggest difference between winning and losing that fight. In other words, the circus just keeps on rolling.

Lee: Fine, I’ll be the one to say it. The Jake Paul Boxing Superstar experiment needs to end.

It’s one thing to drop a listless decision to Tommy Fury in a fight that, I assure you, few people can remember more than a minute of. It’s another to literally have your jaw cracked by a legitimate world-class boxer. Paul, even at his most confident and boisterous, knows there are levels to this. Now he’s felt what that old adage actually means.

Around the fourth or fifth time he flopped to the ground, Paul was probably having a *record scratch* what the hell am I doing here??? moment, and by that point, it was too late to do anything but see it through. So, adrenaline—and lactic acid—pumping, he did enough to allow Joshua to carry him to the sixth round before his flops became drops, and it was only a matter of time until Joshua ended him. When you’re exposed to that degree and have so many other avenues open to you, including just exiting the rat race and buying an island somewhere to live out the rest of your days, it’s a lot more difficult to crank out those two-a-days.

Simply put: He’s Ronda Rousey, and he just got Holly Holm’d.

Meshew: Sure, I don’t see why not.

And if he did actually make the $90 million he’s reported to have earned, I certainly don’t see why he would stop anytime soon. I would happily get obliterated by Anthony Joshua for a fraction of that sort of generational wealth.

Now, Jake Paul is not me. The man already has generational wealth and plenty of other avenues with which to make money in the future that don’t involve traumatic brain injury. Fair enough. But it’s pretty obvious that boxing isn’t about money for Paul. Sure, this is perhaps the most direct way to monetize his brand of brash arrogance, but it’s not the only way.

Combat sports have always been a vehicle for those of meager means to lift their station in life. Paul, in contrast, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and so does not need to fight, but chooses to do so — if I were to guess, I’d say it’s because fighting is where he can pretend to be something other than the truth of his life: dismissed, doubted, the underdog — and by all accounts seems to genuinely love it. I can respect that. At this point, the only person that he’s hurting is himself, and he’s genuinely doing some good for the sport. So long as Paul doesn’t go back to fighting guys who are nearly in an assisted living facility, I have no issue with him continuing to fight.

2. What positives can Paul take away from the Joshua experience?

Martin: He made a lot of money and put on a spectacle of a card that surely drew a whole lot of eyeballs for Netflix. That’s really it.

Nothing happened in that fight that changed my opinion on Paul as a boxer. He was destined to get knocked out, and he got knocked out. He’s a decent fighter and a better promoter. When I say decent, I’m saying enough that Paul can win some fights that he’s supposed to win, but it’s still difficult to believe he’ll beat world-class competition. There’s some undefeated prospect out there who’s been boxing since birth that would likely still take Paul’s head off in a real fight.

But Paul deserves to be commended for constantly drawing interest in whatever he does, and that’s probably not going to stop. He’s promoted a couple of massive cards on Netflix and probably made hundreds of millions of dollars doing it. Good on him. Does that mean he’s a championship-level boxer? Not even remotely close.

Lee: I mean, he actually stepped into the ring with Anthony freakin’ Joshua!

Even if the fight had lasted 30 seconds, Paul would be able to boast that he’s taken this influencer boxing thing farther than anyone thought possible. Remember when he was face-planting NBA veteran Nate Robinson? Remember when he clobbered a hip-less Ben Askren? Remember when he was knocking off club fighters like Ryan Bourland and Andre August? The Bourland fight was less than two years ago! ANTHONY JOSHUA

There’s really no precedent for what Paul has done, and while nobody is obligated to applaud this bizarre, mostly self-serving journey, you can certainly look at it with an objective eye and be taken aback by the sheer WTF’ness of it all. So, for that, Mr. Paul, we salute you, I guess?

Meshew: For as kind as I was to Paul in the first segment, I will be harsher in this one; not to Paul, but to those who are bending over backward to praise him.

You do not, under any circumstances, “have to hand it to” Paul for this past weekend. Yes, he did finally step into the ring against an opponent who overmatched him, instead of the other way around. And yes, he did get seriously hurt. But Paul is not some small kid meeting the school bully after school to admirably take his beating so as not to be mocked by his classmates. This was not done for charity, or honor, or in defense of another. This was prize fighting. He fought Anthony Joshua because that is his job, and he got paid to do so. Handsomely.

But there are two things I will give Paul credit for. The first is that the man has a solid chin on him. I might be more than happy to get punched by AJ for the sum Paul did, but I’m under no delusions that I would brush it off. I’d get hit, wake up at some point, and start counting 100s. But Paul took a full-bore right hand from the former heavyweight champion, and though it broke his jaw, it didn’t break his spirit. Paul beat the count and looked prepared to go out on his shield, before cooler heads prevailed. Kid can take a punch.

Secondly, one of the things I hate the most in combat sports is when fighters change their energy. Nothing grinds my gears quite like when a fighter enters a fight saying they are going to show levels to the game, lose, and then start talking about “I dared to be great,” *cough* Jamahal Hill *cough*. And when the bullets were flying in real time, Paul showed who he was, and it was the same guy.

Immediately before Joshua put Paul down with the right hand, Paul, who was clearly on his last legs and getting whooped, didn’t feign, or cower, or run away; he stood against the ropes and taunted Joshua by sticking his tongue out. Whatever else you want to say about Paul, the man was willing to go down with the bit.

3. Who should Paul fight next?

Martin: Well, it definitely won’t be another top-ranked heavyweight, that’s for certain!

In all likelihood, Paul is going to choose an opponent who can still pull viewers and serve as a solid enough ‘B’ side to justify a fight against him, but somebody whom he could beat.

That’s why my vote is Darren Till.

He’s actually got the size to deal with Paul, unlike the long list of past MMA fighters who faced him, and Till isn’t 10 years past his prime. Till has looked pretty good thus far in his transition to boxing, but he’s still a far cry from the best in the world at, say, cruiserweight or even light heavyweight. Till loves to talk trash, and he’ll lean into the spectacle of a fight against Paul.

Plus, while Till possesses knockout power, he’s not Francis Ngannou connecting with the same force as a Ford Escort going 35 miles per hour, so there’s less risk there at least. Give me Paul vs. Till, maybe even do it in England, and let the mayhem begin.

Lee: After facing back-to-back boxing champions (yes, Julio Cezar Chavez Jr. counts!), I understand that we’ve opened a door we can’t really go back through, but part of me really wants to see Paul just fight some weirdos. Sure, outside of his first couple of fights, that hasn’t really been his thing, but it’s never too late to start, and if Paul does end up back in the gym, it should be for opponents that allow for a lighter training regimen.

Confession time: I’m an old man who can’t name five influencers off the top of my head (that now includes Jack Doherty… sadly, I know who Jack Doherty is), but there has to be someone out there close enough to Paul’s size that it makes sense. So bring on, I don’t know, Instagram hand model Dweezeldorp, or YouTube roller-coaster enthusiast Lenny BarfMaster, or Funky Harold from the popular TikTok lip sync quartet Jammmmmmz. Admit it, you Googled at least one of those names to check if they were real; that’s how dumb this game has become.

I say retire from the fight game, but if you must put the gloves on again, please squash a fellow influencer. And you know what? Do it in MMA.

Meshew: Originally, I was going to say KSI. Paul vs. KSI has been the logical endpoint for influencer boxing since its inception, but now it really does seem like it will never happen. That’s not exactly a shame, but it is kind of odd. However, with that probably off the table, I’ll take the low-hanging fruit of Francis Ngannou.

Paul appears to be setting this fight up already, and I get why; it’s marketable. Coming off a loss, Paul had two options: return to beating up older fighters no one cares about, or double down on the big stuff. Doubling down on the big events seems to make more sense. And while “I lasted longer against AJ than Francis did” is the sort of reductive reasoning that could only resonate with 12-year-olds, that’s also Paul’s target demographic.

Given the previous shots between them, the fact that Francis turned down this fight with Paul — one of the dumbest decisions in the history of combat sports — and Paul surviving for as long as he did, Paul fans can get behind Jake for that fight. Meanwhile, the other demographic, who are just in it to see Paul suffer bodily harm, they can view this as a repeat offering of what they just saw. And I promise you, we have not come close to satiating the global appetite for seeing Paul get smacked. Everybody wins.