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The YouTuber-turned-fighter's jaw dropped agape, his eyes becoming wide, stunned circles as he collapsed to the canvas in stunned disbelief after a pulverising right hand from the former champion. It appeared as if Paul was trying to utter "Whoa!" as the force of the impact sank in to his scrambled senses.

"The audience didn't spend money to see this crap," snapped the referee, summing up the sorry affair far more succinctly than anyone else could.

Trapped in a neutral corner of the ring in the middle of the sixth round, Paul could not run 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 shot that fractured his mandible in two separate places, Paul was caught in an utterly dazed moment.

So this is how it is like, and appears, to be struck cleanly by a real professional fighter, an Olympic champion and former world heavyweight champion. "Goodness" is certainly the word.

It was the fourth time the former YouTuber had been knocked down, but the result of a clean power shot ensured Paul would not be able to rise and waggle his tongue defiantly before the referee called the contest over. As blood began to leak from his mouth, and a numbing throb spread through his jawbone, Paul finally understood how hard, grueling, and dangerous boxing is at a respectable standard of competition.

A Far From Impressive Victory for the Victor

Anthony Joshua, it should be stressed, was not impressive during the bedlam. After his hollow victory, he made a cut-throat motion that hinted at a precise and lethal finish when, in truth, Joshua had appeared exasperated for the majority of the fight. Rather than exuding intimidation or displaying an unshakeable confidence, Joshua had appeared hesitant and crude for almost five stanzas.

Paul's poor fitness, which is a fundamental requirement in elite boxing, dictated the result. Without the gas to escape any more, and resorting to falling to the deck as frequently as he could for a breather, Paul was left helpless by fatigue. Joshua applied the vicious ending, but, until then, he had seemed a sad shadow of the fighter he had been in 2017.

Joshua's Post-Fight Assessment

"It wasn't the finest performance," Joshua conceded. "The end goal was to catch Jake Paul, corner him and do damage. That has been the plan, and that's what was on my thoughts. It took a little more time than anticipated, but the right hand eventually reached its destination."

Joshua praised Paul's courage but he added an explanation for his own stilted performance. "He came up against a real fighter tonight that's had a fifteen-month hiatus," Joshua said, mentioning his last loss. "We dusted off the cobwebs, and I can't wait to roll into 2026."

The Future: Faded Forces and Rising Stars

In the press conference afterwards, a cheerful Joshua tried out a poor impression of Tyson Fury as he demanded a fight against the presently inactive boxer. Joshua will likely have his way, but that bout comes far too late in their professional journeys. Both men are on the far side of the peak.

In stark contrast, the most compelling big men in the world remain Oleksandr Usyk and Moses Itauma. Usyk is still the unquestioned king of the division, after defeating both Joshua and Fury on two occasions. Meanwhile, Itauma is a rapidly ascending force. The young British heavyweight would probably have needed fewer than half the number of three-minute periods that Joshua needed to send Paul into a suitably astonished state.

Paul's Unbowed Reaction

But the fans receives what the public desires, and that undoubtedly means more low-quality celebrity fights. Paul appeared genuinely proud and brash to have had his mandible fractured by a sledgehammer right. In the wee hours of the next day, he shared an X-ray, with the pair of breaks highlighted in crimson.

That lighthearted nod to Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez, a much superior boxer than Joshua but a equally diminished presence, demonstrated that Paul's brazen audacity is unbroken. It may not be Canelo, but Paul will shortly locate someone else with whom he can earn north of $50 million.

While he was being interviewed, before departing to the hospital, Paul expelled a tracer of blood onto the canvas. It was another grim symbol of the night as Paul mangled blunt truth with blood-flecked bravado and said: "I think my jaw is broken. It's certainly broke. A nice little beating from one of the best to ever step in the ring. I love this sport and I'm going to come back and keep on winning."