Anthony Joshua could earn £70 million from a proposed fight with Jake Paul, reports mirror.co.uk.
On Wednesday evening, the boxing fraternity was left stunned after reports stated that Joshua was finalising a deal to fight the YouTuber-turned-boxer this Christmas in Miami.
The fight would be broadcast live on Netflix and could take place on either December 12 or 19.
The “Problem Child” was due to take on Gervonta Davis today, but was forced to call off the fight after his opponent faced allegations of battery, false imprisonment and kidnapping from a former girlfriend. Paul has not fought since he outpointed ex-middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez back in June.
Joshua has not stepped foot in the ring since his crushing knockout defeat to Daniel Dubois in September 2024.
The British heavyweight has been sidelined for the majority of the year, and was expected to return to the ring in the coming months. That said, he is expected to be rewarded handsomely for taking a short notice fight with Paul.
According to the Daily Mail, the official prize pot for the showcase is £140m – with both men taking home a staggering £70m each. Joshua is no stranger when it comes to taking home life-changing paydays. He is believed to have earned up to £30m from his last win – a brutal knockout of former UFC champion Francis Ngannou in March 2024.
The Brit took home a tidy £10m for his victory over Jermaine Franklin two years ago, and a similar amount for his knockout of Robert Helenius in August 2023. He ended that year with a flawless performance against Otto Wallin, also bagging around £10m for that bout.
As for Paul, the YouTuber-turned-boxer regularly pockets $10m when fighting on pay-per-view.
According to reports, the American bagged $40m (£30m) for his win over Mike Tyson last November. The clash between Paul and Tyson was Netflix’s first foray into live boxing. The event peaked at a staggering 65 million live concurrent streams and drew an estimated 108 million average live viewers worldwide.
Paul’s clash with Joshua is expected to break all kinds of records, with millions across the world expected to tune in.
As of yet, nothing is official in terms of the rules and regulations, but the American’s business partner Nakisa Bidarian previously revealed that a potential showdown between the boxer and Joshua would be a professional heavyweight fight.
“This would be pursued as a straight up professional fight. I think there’s certainly an experience gap between the two of them in terms of where they’re at in their career,” he said.
“From my prospective, Joshua’s an active heavyweight. The likelihood of Anthony Joshua being able to land a heavyweight punch is much higher than what Mike Tyson had. I want to give Jake as much time as possible to improve on his boxing skillset to be able to effectively neutralise that main attribute of Anthony Joshua. My ask of him is to wait longer to do it. But when an opportunity is there, sometimes if you don’t take it, it never comes back.”
