A battered and bruised Jake Paul has responded to suggestions that his fight against Anthony Joshua was “rigged” by posting a clip of himself getting punched with a huge right hand that Paul says broke his jaw.
Joshua stopped Paul in the sixth round of their heavyweight contest, knocking down the YouTuber on three occasions before putting him away with a vicious right hand at the 1:31 mark of round six.
The American, who now holds a professional record of 12-2 with seven knockouts, spent much of the fight in survival mode.
JUST IN: The sketchy deal that’s haunting Terence Crawford now
But to his credit, he fought valiantly and landed a handful of punches on the former heavyweight champion. “He’s done really well tonight… I want to give him his props,” said Joshua as he addressed Paul’s performance in the ring.
He added: “It takes a real man to do that. Anyone who laces up these gloves, you give them respect.”
Paul looked worse for wear in the aftermath of Friday’s fight. In fact, MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian provided an update on the American’s condition at the post-fight press conference and suggested he was en route to the hospital.
“We think he broke his jaw,” said Bidarian. “He’s fine. We met with Netflix afterwards. He took a shower. He drove himself to the hospital. A broken jaw is common in sports, particularly in boxing or MMA, and I think the recovery time is four to six weeks.”
Shortly after Bidarian’s update, Paul posted a video of himself getting punched in the face by Joshua. Taking to Instagram, he sent a clear message to the doubters, captioning the clip “RIGGED?”
Paul could be seen spitting blood from his mouth after the TKO defeat. He also posted several pictures of his injuries, as seen below.
“That was crazy…. I had a blast,” Paul said in his post-fight interview. “I’m blessed by God to put on a performance like this. Anthony is a great fighter, I got my arse beat. But I’ll come back and keep winning.
“I’ve already won in every single way in life, my family, my jaw is broken by the way, it’s definitely broke, nice little arse whooping from one of the best to ever do it. Honestly, I’m not surprised, I just got tired, so much handling his weight, I think with better cardio, I could’ve kept fighting. I did my personal best.”
Paul added: “Oh, for sure, we’ll heel the broken jaw, go back, fight people my own weight and go for the cruiserweight world title.”
Prior to Friday’s event in Miami, a number of high-profile names questioned the legitimacy of the contest, including former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, who claimed it was ‘scripted’ because of the weight difference.
“You know, for me, in my opinion, I think it’s scripted a little bit because of the weight difference and Joshua’s a former champion and also he’s current, he’s active. This is going to be the first time that we see Paul fighting an active fighter,” he told Fight Hub TV.
“We’ve seen the Mike Tyson, that was all fun, that was cute… it’s fun and games But now you’re dealing with a real professional. We’ll see how it ends up.”
He added: “I think it’s scripted. At the end of the day, I just want everybody to have fun. I want them to enjoy themselves because we risk our lives for others’ entertainment.”
Paul has been accused of fixing his fights, but there is no evidence to back up such claims.
