Anthony Joshua delivered a dominant performance on Friday night in Miami, stopping Jake Paul in the sixth round of their heavyweight bout at the Kaseya Center. The former two-time unified heavyweight champion scored four knockdowns before the referee waved off the contest at 1:31 of the sixth, ending a mismatch that had drawn weeks of criticism over safety concerns.
From the opening bell, Joshua controlled the centre of the ring while Paul circled on the periphery. The first two rounds were tentative, with low output from both fighters, but Joshua's ring generalship earned him the early rounds. By the third, Joshua began landing power shots, and a right hand to the ribs appeared to buckle Paul late in the round.
The fight descended into farce in the fourth as Paul went into full retreat, clinching repeatedly and claiming a low blow that prompted a prolonged stoppage. Despite the delays, the referee issued no point deduction. Paul went down multiple times in the round, though some were ruled slips or low blows, drawing jeers from the crowd.
In the fifth, Paul was dropped by a clean right hand and again moments later, surviving to the bell only after Joshua trapped him in the corner and unloaded unanswered shots. The end came early in the sixth when Paul went down twice more, unable to beat the count on the second knockdown.
Joshua, 36, returned after a knockout loss to Daniel Dubois and improved his record to 28-4 with 25 knockouts. Paul, 28, fell to 11-2 as a professional. The bout was streamed globally on Netflix to an estimated 300 million subscribers.
