Jake Paul managed to land a number of clean shots on Anthony Joshua before his brutal knockout defeat to the Briton in Miami.
Joshua was the overwhelming favourite heading into his bout against the YouTuber-turned-boxer on Friday night.
The fight pitting the Olympic gold medallist and two-time heavyweight champion against a man with just 13 fights under his belt having only started boxing five years ago was widely condemned as a farcical mismatch, despite Paul promising to spring what would have been one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.
Joshua got the win in the sixth round, flooring Paul for the fourth time in the fight with a vicious shot that broke his opponent’s jaw.
But Joshua endured a frustrating start to the contest, missing with a number of big shots as Paul did his best to stay out of the way.
In a tame opening round, both men landed just two punches with Paul and Joshua throwing 11 and 10 respectively.
Joshua – and the crowd – grew frustrated as the fight wore on with Paul largely focused on keeping out of Joshua’s way and diving in front of his opponent’s legs on more than one occasion – seemingly a tactic to avoid damage and buy himself some times.
But the American did outland Joshua in the fourth round, finding the target with five of his 13 shots with Joshua landing only four of his 19.
Joshua began breaking down his opponent in the fifth however with the punch stats reflecting that growing dominance, landing 20 of 45 punches compared to Paul’s five from 16.
Paul didn’t land a single shot in the sixth round, with Joshua hitting him with 11 before the stoppage came.
While Paul did tag Joshua with some shots – including one particularly neat effort early in the fifth round that merely bounced off the bigger man’s chin. But the overall fight stats told a one-sided story.
In all, Paul threw just 56 punches with only 16 of those landing, giving him a successful punches percentage of 28.6 per cent.
While not his most accurate night’s work, Joshua finished with a superior 32.9 per cent, landing 48 of 146 thrown.
‘It wasn’t the best performance. The end goal was to get him, pin him down and hurt him. That’s what people wanted, that was on my mind. It took longer than expected,’ Joshua said.
‘Now, Jake Paul has done really well tonight. He got up, time and time again. It was difficult for me in there. We give them their respect, he tried and tried, but he came up against a real fighter in there.’