It finally happened! Yes! I was waiting for this! We all were!

I Don't Like Boxing. But Tonight, I Loved Watching Jake Paul Get Flattened. 🥊🎄

A live diary from a guy who just watched reality cash a very expensive check. Featuring: a running man, a human bulldozer, and a jaw that learned a new time zone.

Real Quick: My schedule is one article every four days. It’s a good rhythm. But rules are for people who haven’t just witnessed a public service performed with fists. So, screw the schedule. Anthony Joshua just spent six rounds giving Jake Paul the world’s most expensive geometry lesson, and I need to talk about it before the moral high wears off.

Let’s get my credentials out of the way: I am not a boxing guy. 🥊❌

I couldn’t name five current champions if you held a gun to my head (though after tonight, I could name one). My entire pugilistic education comes from Rocky montages, Twitter arguments, and the gravitational pull of a truly ridiculous spectacle. People like me—the casually bemused, the hate-watchers, the “I’ll just check the result” crowd—we are Jake Paul’s real legacy. He built a bridge from the YouTube sidebar to the ring, and we all wandered over to see what the noise was about.

Tonight, the noise was a thud. A beautiful, definitive, teeth-rattling thud.

Act I: The Gift That Was Finally Delivered 🎁👊

For weeks, the hype machine sold this as a question: “Could the YouTuber shock the world?”

We all knew the answer. The real question was: “In what round will the universe finally send the invoice?”

Tonight, Anthony Joshua delivered the gift we’d all had on backorder. The gift of Consequences. Wrapped in a leather glove, delivered via express shipping to the jaw. The wrapping paper was sweat and the bow was that dazed, cartoon-bird-spinning-around-the-head look Jake wore as he tried to remember what year it was.

And to the geniuses in this world of boxing already typing “FIXED!” or “FAKE!”—give it a rest. 🙄

You cannot CGI the specific shade of white that fills a man’s face when he realizes the laws of physics do not give a single, solitary damn about his jaw. You cannot fake a jaw deciding to take a sudden, unscheduled vacation to the left side of your face. That wasn’t a script. That was science. Beautiful, brutal, Newtonian science.

Act II: The Fight Diary (Or, “Run, Jake, Run!”) 🏃‍♂️💨

From the moment the bell rang, the vibe wasn’t “sporting contest.” It was “documentary about a very fast gazelle who pissed off a lion.”

Jake Paul didn’t box. He practiced a new form of evasive meteorology, desperately trying to predict where the next Category 5 hurricane would make landfall on his person. His strategy seemed to be: Move. Maybe jab. Actually, just keep moving. Has anyone checked the locks on the doors?

He’d flick out a punch like he was testing the temperature of a really hot bath. Anthony Joshua’s response was to throw the entire bathtub, the plumbing, and the adjacent bathroom wall right back at him.

There were moments Jake landed. He’s tough. I’ll give him that. He’s game. But every connection was like throwing a pebble at a speeding bulldozer. The bulldozer doesn’t swerve. It doesn’t honk. It just registers the faint ping and keeps rolling forward, its engine grinding your entire reality into paste.

It wasn’t a fight. It was a demonstration. A PhD in pain defending his thesis against a plucky undergraduate who showed up with a Wikipedia printout.

Act III: The Weird, Grudging Thank You Note ✍️🤡

Okay. Deep breath. Time for the uncomfortable honesty that annoys me to type:

We owe Jake Paul a weird, backhanded, slightly sarcastic thank you. 🎩

Seriously. I, and millions of millennials and Gen Z-ers who thought boxing was something our dads watched while falling asleep in a recliner, actually paid attention. We learned what a “check hook” is. We argued about footwork. We felt the collective schadenfreude-tinged thrill of a big fight night.

He was the Trojan Horse of the sport. He wrapped a genuine athletic pursuit in the glittering, dumb papier-mâché of influencer drama and rolled it right into our cultural bloodstream. For that, he has my begrudging respect. It doesn’t mean I have to like him. And it absolutely does not mean he belongs in the same postal code as a force of nature like Anthony Joshua.

He made boxing matter to people who don’t like boxing. That’s his legacy. That, and a dentist bill that probably has its own area code.

Act IV: What Now? (A User's Guide to a Broken Hustle) 🔮

Okay, the main event is over. The highlight reel of Jake Paul’s face learning new shapes will be on loop for a decade. The real question starts now: What’s the next grift?

Let's look at the roadmap, because you know the business plan is already being updated.

1. The "Tommy Fury: The Do-Over" Grift (Most Likely) 🥊👊 This is the easiest layup. Jake’s only other loss was to Tommy Fury, a man whose primary achievement is being related to Tyson Fury and having a decent jab. The narrative writes itself: "I was young! I've grown! I need to avenge my only other loss to prove I'm a real boxer!" Beating Tommy doesn't make him a world-beater, but it lets him say he beat a real, young, active boxer. It’s the perfect credibility patch for the punctured ego. The press conferences would be gold.

2. The "Noble Warrior & The Legends Tour" Grift (The Safe Bet) 🛡️👴 He retreats to what’s comfortable: fighting 40+ year old MMA legends and celebrities. Next up: a rematch with a 59-year-old Mike Tyson, or a showdown with a retired UFC champ who needs a payday. The spin becomes less "fearless disruptor" and more "sad, brave warrior collecting veteran scalps." It’s the fighter equivalent of only playing chess against your grandma—you might win, but everyone knows why.

3. The "Celebrity Carnival" Cash-Out (The Sell-Out) 🎪🤡 He leans all the way into the spectacle. Why fight boxers when you can fight a YouTuber in a pool of custard? Or an NFL player? Or a literally anyone with a pulse and 5 million followers? It becomes pure, uncut content. Boxing purists would vomit, but his core stans would eat it up. The money would be stupid. The respect would be zero, but at a certain point, who cares? The yacht doesn't.

4. The "Quiet Ghost" Exit (The Unlikely) 👻💸 The spark—the unshakable, obnoxious confidence that fueled this whole ride—got knocked into the third row tonight. Maybe the desire to be a "real fighter" evaporates when a real fighter shows you what that actually means. He fades into venture capital and podcasts, a 28-year-old billionaire whose most notable business venture was letting people punch him in the face for money. A weird legacy, but a hell of a 401(k).

My bet? It’s a mix of #1 and #2. He’ll chase Tommy Fury for the "real boxer" credibility, and when (if) he wins, he’ll go right back to fighting grandpas and MMA retirees on cruise ships. The grift evolves; it doesn't die. You can’t sell "fearless disruptor" anymore, but you can absolutely sell "the people’s chaotic underdog." And there will always be an audience for that.

Epilogue: Why This Felt Better Than Christmas Morning 🎅💥

Let's not sugarcoat it: this wasn't just schadenfreude. This was cosmic chiropractic adjustment. The universe grabbed the plot by the shoulders and went CRACK—"There. That's better."

For years, we've been living in the Upside Down. Where being likable beats being good at things. Where going viral beats having virtue. Where the hustle podcast bro screaming in your earbuds convinces you he's outworked the guy who has literally been getting punched in the face for a living since he was twelve.

Tonight, for 20 minutes of fight time (and about 8 seconds of beautiful, unconscious nap time), the natural order was restored. A man built from craft, discipline, and quiet, terrifying power looked a man built from audacity and AdSense revenue dead in the eye. And with his fists, he delivered the simplest, oldest review in human history: "Nah."

Jake Paul made boxing accessible to me. He was the flashy, annoying tour guide. And the first real, visceral lesson I learned from the sport was the one Anthony Joshua taught in the sixth round: "Know your role." And Jake's role, it turns out, was "speed bump."

So thank you, Jake, for building the bridge from my YouTube recommendations to a sport I have respect for. And thank you, Anthony, for doing what you did to the toll collector standing in the middle of it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch that knockout clip approximately 47 more times. I need to study the precise moment his soul briefly left his body to check if the Wi-Fi was working in the afterlife.

My regular, snarky, non-boxing-related programming will resume in four days. Unless, of course, someone knocks out another influencer before then. A guy can hope.

P.S. I just looked at his record. Two losses.. Oh, man. The content. The narrative. It just doesn't end! The comeback story writes itself! I can't wait to not watch it!

Tonight, we celebrate a jaw discovering a whole new postal code. 🦷➡️📦

Still not a boxing fan, but tonight was art,
Allen
FriedReads.com | @Allen_Fried