Such was the oddity of Anthony Joshua versus Jake Paul even taking place, the fight landed on Netflix under a cloud of suspicion that boxing had surrendered itself to choreography.
To be clear, this was a sanctioned professional contest, not a scripted event- and the storyline it produced was mundane and predictably one-sided.
No scriptwriter would have come up with something like this.
The plot played out in the ring was lifeless- a slow, joyless watch that would have struggled to earn even a charitable rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
And the ultimate irony is that this spectacle has provided one of Joshua’s biggest paydays and, in all likelihood, his largest television audience.
With seconds remaining in the fourth round, referee Christopher Young perhaps spoke for viewers around the world when he pulled the fighters together and urged them to engage.
Directing his comments at Paul, he said: “Fans didn’t pay to see this crap.”
“Amen,” replied Netflix commentator Mauro Ranallo. “Christopher Young with the call of the night.”
All week Joshua spoke about “carrying boxing on his back”. On Friday night in Miami, he dumped the load, but only after an awkward and laboured process.
Paul was there to survive.
The man who spent fight week promising the greatest upset in sporting history instead avoided engagement.
He circled endlessly- making the most of the space afford by a ring two feet wider than normal- and attempted to run down the clock.
When he did make contact, it was with echoes of his schoolboy past as a wrestler, constantly going low and grabbing Joshua’s leg.
There was an embarrassing lack of punches by Paul and a litany of wild swings from Joshua that even a novice like his opponent was able to easily evade.
“It’s a win but it’s not a success,” Joshua said afterwards. “I’ve got a lot of improving I’ve got to do. I’m not happy.”
Joshua earned his share of a reported £210m purse, but from a boxing perspective- and for those in the UK who stayed up into the early hours to watch- the contest was meaningless.
Is Joshua set for another gimmick fight?
Joshua stood in the ring and told the crowd he did not care about legacy. It was an honest line, and a fairly accurate one, because nothing that just happened was going to add to it.
The 36-year-old is a schooled heavyweight, an Olympic gold medallist and a former two-time world champion.
He has left a significant footprint on the sport and inspired a generation of fighters and fans.
But going six rounds before doing the inevitable against Paul – a 28-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer who had never faced anything close to elite level – will not enhance that legacy.
“I wish I could have knocked him out at the start,” Joshua said. “But as we saw, Jake has spirit, he has some heart. He tried his best and I take my hat off to him.”
The fight underlined how boxing’s landscape is shifting, with Netflix-driven hype and commercial appeal increasingly trumping sporting logic.
It is the same thinking that has recently fuelled talk of Irish star Katie Taylor facing former UFC champion Ronda Rousey.
Joshua, for his part, is open to operating in that space.
Two of his past three fights have now come against boxing novices – first UFC fighter Francis Ngannou, and now Paul. His only other outing in that period ended in a heavy knockout defeat by a top-level heavyweight in Daniel Dubois.
The Dubois bout suggested Joshua is in decline, the toil of 33 professional fights after an amateur career eroding his powers.
Amid that backdrop, who can really blame him for taking the money and spotlight afforded at this stage in his career?
When promoter Eddie Hearn was asked about reports linking Joshua with a February bout against kickboxer Rico Verhoeven, he did not rule it out.
“Rico or whoever it is, we haven’t finalised that yet,” Hearn said. “The date is what we’re going to work out in the next four, five, six days. We’re not going to rush him back if he’s not quite ready. But we won’t be long.” (BBC)
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