On Tuesday 11 November, upstairs in the glassy confines of The Pelligon – an event space in Canary Wharf, London – Anthony Joshua’s promoter made a curious statement to The Independent and other members of the media.
“We will make a decision this week on Anthony’s next fight,” Eddie Hearn, the Matchroom boss, began, addressing the huddle of reporters. That, of course, was not the curious part. “If he fights this year, you probably won’t even hear about it. We would literally rock up on fight week.
“The whole point is to not have to come and do [media] – just chill out, turn up on the Wednesday or Thursday, weigh in, wrap your hands, and go and fight.” That was fascinating, but still not the point in question.
The key words were these: “Unless it’s Jake Paul.”
Within hours, The Ring magazine reported that a fight between “AJ” and the YouTuber-turned-boxer was a done deal. It was difficult in that moment not to feel that Hearn had held something back in our conversation.
“No [offer has been made],” the 46-year-old had told us. “We’ve had some discussions. If we were to have a run-out, a run-out against Jake Paul would be quite pleasant! I’m not sure he’s that mad – he might be – but nothing major to report at this stage. If he is mad enough, it just might happen, but nothing that close yet.”
In the end, it seemed Hearn had been as transparent with the media. As transparent as The Pelligon’s glass exterior, no less; he was quick to counter The Ring’s report, saying repeatedly that someone had “jumped the gun”. Indeed, days passed and there was no confirmation, with focus reverting to Saturday’s rematch between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr in Tottenham.
Still, this reporter will not have been the only one fielding questions over text, all along the lines of: “This AJ vs Jake Paul thing can’t be real, can it?” The simple answer was that the talks were real, but the fight itself was always likely to be fragile, especially given Hearn’s frosty relationship with Paul and Nakisa Bidarian – the 28-year-old’s business partner at Most Valuable Promotions (MVP).
Yet, working within the boxing press, one could not shake the feeling that a Joshua vs Paul announcement was imminent. Then, at lunchtime on Monday in the UK, the news broke in a press release that contained the kicker: “Yes, it’s real.” Joshua vs Paul was set for 19 December in Miami, to stream live on Netflix. Eight three-minute rounds, with regular 10oz gloves, a professional bout with knockouts allowed.
Later that day, The Independent met with Bidarian at the Netflix office in London. He told the story of how the fight came together, starting with early talks this summer.
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“In July, we met with Eddie,” the MVP CEO, 47, told The Independent, before suggesting Hearn had initially thought “publicity stunt” upon seeing Paul’s public targeting of a fight with Joshua, a former two-time world heavyweight champion. “I said: ‘It’s real. We want to do it next year.’ And we agreed if if Jake got through Gervonta, like… There was a chance Gervonta knocks out Jake, then there’s no AJ fight.”
Bidarian was referencing Paul’s planned bout with fellow American Gervonta Davis, an unbeaten lightweight world champion. That bout was scheduled for 14 November but fell apart less than two weeks ahead of time, after Davis was hit with fresh allegations of battery from an ex-girlfriend. Davis is yet to publicly address the allegations – and a representative of the 31-year-old did not respond to The Independent – but they are not the first of this kind that have come from one of his ex-partners; in August, the mother of two of Davis’s three children dropped a domestic-violence case against him.
An investigation into the new allegations began, and immediately, MVP was “looking at alternatives” for Paul to box. “I had like 25 or 30 fighters who accepted to be a replacement within two weeks,” Bidarian says.
“Even I think AJ, because Jake and AJ spoke, and Jake said: ‘You down?’ [Joshua] was like: ‘Yeah, let’s run it. Now.’” Per Bidarian, Paul pushed to fight Joshua, 36, on two weeks’ notice, “and he said ‘yeah’. Wow, okay. But there were a lot of hurdles to get over.”
One such hurdle was the broadcaster; Paul’s next fight was due to stream on Netflix, while Joshua is contracted to DAZN – which has aired some of Paul’s fights before. (Joshua has previously encountered matchmaking issues with rivals Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder over each fighter’s broadcasting home.) One week prior, Hearn had acknowledged this obstacle, saying: “Yeah, that would be another issue to overcome, there’s a lot of issues to overcome. But if [Paul] really wanted it, there’s probably ways to make it happen.”
A week on, Bidarian told The Independent: “Netflix, being great partners, said, ‘Look, we understand the situation you’re in.’ They had like four names that they were really gung-ho about. AJ was one.” The others, Bidarian says, were pound-for-pound king Terence Crawford, American star Ryan Garcia, and the legendary Manny Pacquiao.
“Garcia was ready, Crawford was ready, Joshua was ready,” Bidarian says, claiming that various UFC alumni also said yes, including Paul’s former opponents Nate Diaz and Anderson Silva. Furthermore, boxers like Rolly Romero and Edgar Berlanga were “ready”, mixed martial arts icon Fedor Emelianenko was “ready”, as was former UFC fighter Yoel Romero.
“The amount of people that were ready was pretty amazing. Tommy Fury wasn’t ready,” Bidarian claimed, referencing the only man to have beaten Paul – the cousin of Tyson Fury.
Touching on why he feels DAZN enabled Joshua to veer from its platform for this fight with Paul, Bidarian opined: “They all feel pretty confident AJ is gonna clean up Jake and build a bigger brand for them in 2026.” Still, Bidarian credited DAZN, Joshua, Matchroom and Hearn for getting the fight across the line – in spite of his own fraught relationship with Hearn.
“[Hearn and I talked] an immense amount, more so than ever before,” Bidarian said. “I have to give them credit, they accepted Jake as the A-side, they accepted MVP is in control, but it wasn’t because it’s life-changing money for them – it’s because it’s what AJ wanted to do. Were there negotiating points around Matchroom and its brand and its representation? Of course, but I honestly believe Eddie did the right thing because his fighter wanted this. And they all believe it’s an easy payday.”
Bidarian suggested that Britain’s Joshua “is like 20 per cent of the star that Gervonta is in the US, which is the biggest viewership market in the world. What you’re counting on in the US is that the craziness of Jake to do this gets the mainstream audience interested.”
Joshua will be capped at 245lb, though this should not be of much detriment to him. “That’s for the day before the fight, but there’s no rehydration clause,” Bidarian said. “I just didn’t want him to come in at 265lb, right? Seriously, because Jake will have been cutting weight, he may walk in that night at 215lb.”
Here, Bidarian touched on some fans’ feelings that Paul is in serious danger against Joshua. Paul’s opponents have largely been older and/or mixed martial artists crossing into boxing; when they have been actual boxers closer to his age, they have not been of great pedigree (though Bidarian would disagree as pertains to Tommy Fury, and recent foe Julio Cesar Chavez Jr). That is, until now, as Paul prepares to face one of the greatest knockout artists in boxing history.
Still, “There’s no doubt in Jake’s mind that he can beat AJ,” Bidarian said. He meant it, too.
Late on Monday, UK time, Paul had tweeted, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” (but at around six times that length). “I think it was the moment he knew it was finally going to be announced,” Bidarian said on Tuesday. “As you can imagine, there were people who didn’t want this fight to happen. If you had plans for Joshua in 2026, you might have had plans for him in 2025.”
Bidarian was hinting at Saudi machinations for Joshua to box Tyson Fury in 2026, at long last. “One hundred per cent there was a desire and attempt to (A) control this fight and (B) give Joshua alternatives not to do this fight,” Bidarian claimed. “That’s why, again, I have to give credit to AJ and Matchroom, because they have a great relationship with Turki [Alalshikh, Saudi adviser] and they could have said: ‘Let’s figure out how to do something else here.’”
Right now in boxing, it feels like there is nothing else. Nothing but the march towards Joshua vs Paul, which begins with a press conference on Friday.
Hearn told The Independent and others last week that “no”, Joshua does not have his training camp sorted for his next fight. “Obviously you know he went to the [Oleksandr] Usyk camp, he’s done that [kind of thing] plenty of times before,” Hearn said, alluding to the Ukrainian great responsible for two of Joshua’s four losses. “He went to the Canelo [Alvarez] camp, he went to Robert Garcia, he went to Derrick James, he went to other places he didn’t take on long-term. He’ll make a decision about his training team, but that trip [to Usyk’s gym] was more just for a little fact-finding mission – and to have a look at how others work.”
Some will claim that Joshua could knock out Paul in a matter of seconds without going through a training camp. Now, the world waits to see what happens on 19 December, in the weirdest match-up in boxing history.
