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All roads now lead to Tyson Fury for Anthony Joshua after PT Barnum-esque carnival in Miami
P. T. Barnum was an American showman, raconteur, and entertainer, best known for creating spectacular public amusements. The man who the phrase “There is a fool born every minute” is attributed to, he was the pioneer of hype and ran circuses that mixed spectacle with shock value.
I consider Jake Paul to be the modern-day equivalent of P.T. Barnum due to their shared genius for self-promotion and creating odd spectacles that generate extraordinary sums of cash.
Paul’s hustle is the reason why – with a chihuahua on my lap blinking at the Christmas tree lights – I sat in relative darkness at 04:30am on a cold December morning in the UK to watch him fight British heavyweight Anthony Joshua at the Kaseya Center in Miami.
On paper, the fight was legit. Eight three-minute rounds with the fighters using 10oz gloves. The bout had been sanctioned as a professional heavyweight contest and will therefore count on each of their pro records when all is said and done.
Alas more was said than done. It was not a memorable encounter. At times this was boxing in the loosest sense of the word. This was profit over purity.
‘The Problem Child’ was in deep, and in the end, he was unable to swim in such dangerous waters.
Want to know why Jake Paul is the moder day equivalent of P. T. Barnum? He was the A-side. The A-side against a former two-time unified heavyweight world champion and Olympic gold medallist.
Whether the purists liked it or not - money talks - and Paul was the star attraction on US soil. I guess it didn’t hurt either that he is also the co-founder of MVP, who were promoting the event.
The signs were there that this might be a tough watch before the combatants touched gloves before the start. It was a bigger ring - 22-by-22-foot - and El Gallo took full advantage of that in the early going as he ran and stayed out of harms way.
I disagree that Paul emerges from this fight with his reputation totally enhanced. OK, he got in there and took shots from Anthony Joshua in 10-ounce gloves. He also landed a few decent shots of his own. But he didn’t stand and have a fight. For the most part he was clinching, flopping, and running. It was chaos in there. AJ - who probably thought he had seen it all in a pro career then began back in 2013 - looked out of the ring more than once during the fight as if to say, ‘what’s happening here?’
For those who don’t think Paul ran, the stats don’t lie. Paul landed six punches in the first three rounds. He out landed AJ by five punches to four in the fourth – his best round – but the fact he only landed with 16 punches in the whole fight kind of tells its own story.
Once Paul ran out of energy after running for 3+ rounds it was perhaps inevitable that Joshua would hunt him down. The finish showed that AJ is still that guy, but the fact he took until midway through the sixth round to lower the boom against a YouTuber meant criticism and a backlash of some sort was inevitable.
Did the Watford man get out of first gear in the early rounds? As Lennox Lewis alluded, AJ had been out of the ring for well over a year and may have felt a little rusty in the early going. I can’t be too hard on him. Joshua has never had the quickest feet, and he struggled to adjust early on against an opponent who was constantly circling on the outside.
The truth is most people raging online afterwards that Joshua didn’t win inside two rounds were probably talking through their pockets. Full disclosure – I did feel 8/5 quotes that AJ would win within the first two rounds were an early Christmas gift from the bookies to be fair, and for this reason it could well be Mini Kievs instead of turkey for me this year on December 25.
But AJ was in a no-win situation here because everyone expected him to win and Paul was running for the most part. Also in the back of his mind Joshua probably knew that if he got clipped by a haymaker as he stalked his American opponent, his career as an elite heavyweight contender was over. The cloak of invincibility was pulled away from him forever by Andy Ruiz Jr back in 2019, but the world still wants to see him settle his differences with ‘Gypsy King’ Tyson Fury in 2026.
Paul’s lack of cardio was a surprise. This is a man with plenty of money. He pays for the best coaches, nutritionists, chefs, strength and conditioning trainers. He’s a full-time athlete now but seemed to run out of energy by the fourth round.
Yet even in defeat and with a mouth full of blood he showed that – like Barnum – he could blur the lines between truth and exaggeration by claiming he was going to look for a world title shot at cruiserweight next.
For AJ – who will privately be happy to wave goodbye to the Barnum-esque carnival that went down in Florida - all roads now lead to Fury. That’s a serious fight between two men who have been on a collision course for years.
Joshua and Paul made bank on Friday night, but you can’t help feeling that the fight itself felt like another black eye for boxing's integrity.
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