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Jake Paul's jaw dropped wide open, his expression turning to huge glazed saucers as he collapsed to the canvas in stunned disbelief after a devastating right hand from Anthony Joshua. It appeared as if Paul was attempting to say "Wow!" as the severity of the blow sank in to his scrambled senses.

"Those watching didn't pay to see this rubbish," said the referee, encapsulating the sorry affair far more succinctly than anyone else could.

Trapped in a corner of the ring in the middle of the sixth round, Paul could no longer retreat or hold on to Joshua's legs in a desperate clinch as the serious reality of the sweet science enveloped him. Instead, as he attempted to withstand the shot that fractured his mandible in two separate places, Paul was lost in an utterly stunned moment.

So this is how it is like, and appears, to be struck cleanly by a genuine boxer, an Olympic gold medallist and former world heavyweight champion. "Goodness" is certainly the word.

It was the fourth time the former YouTuber had been sent to the floor, but the result of a proper punch ensured Paul would not be able to rise and waggle his tongue defiantly before the official waved the contest to a halt. As blood began to leak from his lips, and a numbing throb spread through his jawbone, Paul finally understood how hard, exhausting, and perilous boxing is at a respectable level of professionalism.

A Far From Impressive Win for Joshua

Joshua, it must be noted, was not impressive during the chaos. After his hollow victory, he performed a cut-throat motion that hinted at a clinical and lethal finish when, in reality, Joshua had cut a frustrated figure for the majority of the contest. Instead of glowering with menace or displaying an iron certainty, Joshua had seemed hesitant and crude for almost five rounds.

Paul's poor fitness, which is a basic essential in elite boxing, shaped the result. Without the gas to flee any more, and reduced to slipping to the deck as often as he could for a rest, Paul was left defenseless by exhaustion. Joshua applied the vicious finish, but, until then, he had looked like a sad shadow of the boxer he had been in 2017.

Joshua's Aftermath Assessment

"It wasn't the best display," Joshua conceded. "The objective was to get Jake Paul, corner him and hurt him. That has been the request, and that's what was on my mind. It took a bit longer than expected, but the straight right eventually reached its destination."

Joshua commended Paul's bravery but he offered an excuse for his own labored showing. "He came up against a genuine competitor tonight that's had a fifteen-month layoff," Joshua said, referencing his last loss. "We dusted off the rust, and I can't wait to roll into 2026."

What Comes Next: Past Their Prime and New Talent

In the press conference afterwards, a jovial Joshua attempted a poor imitation of Tyson Fury as he demanded a fight against the presently inactive boxer. Joshua will probably have his way, but that matchup comes much too late in their professional journeys. Both men are on the far side of the hill.

In stark contrast, the most compelling heavyweights in the world are Oleksandr Usyk and Moses Itauma. Usyk remains the unquestioned king of the weight class, having beaten both Joshua and Fury twice. Meanwhile, Itauma is a rising talent. The youthful British heavyweight likely have needed less than half the amount of three-minute periods that Joshua needed to send Paul into a suitably astonished stupor.

The Defeated Fighter's Unbowed Response

But the public receives what the public wants, and that undoubtedly means additional pitiful crossover fights. Paul seemed genuinely proud and brash to have had his mandible fractured by a sledgehammer right. In the early hours of the next day, he shared an radiograph, with the pair of breaks marked in crimson.

That jokey reference to Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez, a far greater fighter than Joshua but a similarly diminished presence, demonstrated that Paul's brazen audacity remains undented. It may not be Canelo, but Paul will soon locate someone else with whom he can earn more than $50 million.

While he was being interviewed, before leaving for the medical facility, Paul expelled a tracer of blood onto the canvas. It was another bleak summary of the night as Paul mangled blunt truth with blood-flecked bullshit and stated: "I believe my jaw is broken. It's definitely broke. A proper beating from one of the greatest to ever step in the ring. I adore this shit and I'm going to return and keep on winning."