Anthony Joshua is in line for an extraordinary payday of around £70million should he agree to face Jake Paul in Miami this Christmas, a figure that would rank among the most lucrative of his career.
The proposed bout, which stunned the boxing world when news of advanced negotiations broke on Wednesday night, is expected to be broadcast live on Netflix with December 12 or 19 under consideration.
The scale of the financial package reflects the global spectacle the streaming platform intends to create around a fight many regard as one of the most improbable matchups of the modern era.
Paul, who had been preparing to meet Gervonta Davis on Friday, saw that contest collapse after Davis was accused by a former girlfriend of battery, false imprisonment and kidnapping. As a result, the American has been idle since outpointing Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in June.
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Joshua has endured his own extended period of inactivity, having not fought since suffering a crushing knockout against Daniel Dubois last September.
His rehabilitation has been slow and largely private, though there had been mounting expectation that he would return before the year’s end.
A short notice meeting with Paul promises a vast financial reward, even if it has unsettled purists concerned about its competitive legitimacy.
Anthony Joshua is in line for an extraordinary payday of around £70million should he agree to face Jake Paul in Miami this Christmas, a figure that would rank among the most lucrative of his career
|PA
According to the Daily Mail, the prize fund for the event stands at £140m, to be split evenly between the two fighters.
The sum would dwarf Joshua’s typical earnings. He is believed to have pocketed around £30m for his brutal stoppage of Francis Ngannou in March 2024, a fight that restored confidence in his knockout power.
Two years ago he reportedly secured £10m for beating Jermaine Franklin and took home a similar figure after dispatching Robert Helenius in August 2023.
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Anthony Joshua has been absent from boxing since his defeat to Daniel Dubois in September 2024
| PAHe closed that year with a dominant display against Otto Wallin which also yielded approximately £10m.
Paul’s commercial appeal has risen sharply since his transition from online celebrity to professional boxer.
He routinely earns around $10m per fight on pay per view and collected a reported $40m for his exhibition with Mike Tyson last November.
That contest marked Netflix’s first attempt at live boxing and drew astonishing viewership, peaking at an estimated 65 million concurrent streams with an average global audience of 108 million.
A clash with Joshua is expected to outstrip even those numbers. But details of the ruleset and structure remain unresolved.
Nakisa Bidarian, Paul’s business partner and co founder of Most Valuable Promotions, has previously insisted that any meeting between the pair would be contested as a full professional bout.
Jake Paul beat Mike Tyson by majority decision last November | REUTERS“This would be pursued as a straight up professional fight. I think there is certainly an experience gap between the two of them in terms of where they are at in their career,” he said.
Bidarian acknowledged the scale of the challenge Paul would face against a seasoned heavyweight.
“From my perspective, 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 do not take it, it never comes back."