Former YouTuber and business entrepreneur Jake Paul embarked, for some reason, on a professional boxing career nearly six years ago, and has parlayed his online following into a fandom that has become easily the biggest and most lucrative in the sport.
But Paul may have made a serious mistake by entering the ring against former two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua of Great Britain on Friday night in Miami. While one reported estimate had Paul making $92 million for the fight — and Paul himself has claimed that he will collect $267 million — he may not be able to fully enjoy that money, based on the opinions of medical experts who weighed in after the fight.
Fight Itself a ‘Clown Show’
The fight itself, deemed a “clown show” by at least one observer, saw Paul running and circling around the ring seemingly nonstop from the opening bell, in an attempt to avoid the much larger Joshua, who had previously knocked out 25 opponents in a 32-fight career.
Paul landed a mere 16 punches in the entire fight, according to Compubox, none of them appearing to have any effect on Joshua beyond simply annoying him.
When Joshua, 36, managed to get close enough to land on Paul, the heavily bearded social media influencer either clinched or dropped to his knees, in what was undoubtedly one of the most unprofessional displays by any boxer in a major fight in recent memory.
But eventually, midway through the sixth round, Paul ran out of gas, and Joshua caught up with him. That spelled big trouble for the 28-year-old.
Paul May Have Suffered Concussion
With 1:31 remaining in the sixth of what was scheduled as an eight-round fight, Joshua — who had already floored Paul twice in the fifth round — pinned Paul in a corner and unleashed a devastating right cross that landed squarely on Paul’s jaw. That shot ended the fight.
Paul said after the fight that his jaw was broken, but according to Dr. Brian Sutterer, a sports medicine expert and educator who analyzed Paul’s injuries in a video posted to YouTube, the former Disney Channel actor may have also suffered a traumatic brain injury, more commonly known as a concussion.
“Whether a jaw fracture is present often comes lower on the priority list compared to potential damage to the brain,” Sutterer said in his analysis. “Jake could have sustained a concussion or residual symptoms from this punch.
“His head is relatively still as (Joshua) comes in with the right hand, and that sudden, quick, violent rotation of the head transmits a lot of rotational force not only through the brain, but also through the brainstem. That absolutely raises the possibility of a concussion.
“Thankfully, it didn’t completely knock him out, but it could still result in delayed symptoms.”
Paul Claims Numerous Earlier Concussions
Paul posted x-ray images of his jaw, which confirmed that the jawbone was indeed fractured in two places. The fallen boxer later posted an image of himself in a hospital bed saying that he “just got out of surgery,” and was suffering “lots of pain and stiffness. Gotta eat liquids for seven days.”
But while Paul did not mention whether he had been diagnosed with a concussion, he claimed as early as 2021, less than two years into his boxing career, that he had already endured between 20 and 30 concussions in his young lifetime.
The consequences of multiple concussions are likely to be extremely serious, ranging from depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts to memory loss, speech difficulties, and a risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia 20 times greater than others of the same age.
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