Jake Paul had a "serious reality check" in his knockout loss to Anthony Joshua and will not think he can reach world-class level, says Your Site expert Johnny Nelson.
Joshua, a former two-time world heavyweight champion, struggled to pin down Paul in the early rounds in Miami but finally ended the fight with a huge right hand in the sixth round - one that left his opponent with a broken jaw, which required surgery.
Speaking to Your Site News, ex-world cruiserweight champion Nelson has had his say on…
"I think he realised the task in hand when he stood there in the 22-foot ring.
"He sees an Adonis of a fighter, former world champion Anthony Joshua, in the other corner and that's when reality hit fiction.
"Everything he had in his head, everything he thought that he could possibly do had disappeared, slipped out of the ring with the cornermen and he thought 'wow, this is for real'
"Even a little jab that just gently missed him, you could see him thinking 'what is this about?' So it was a case of survival and I didn't want Joshua to knock him out, if I'm honest with you. I thought 'you've got to make this kid have a reality check' and that's what he actually did.
"Boxing looks so easy on the TV, it looks so matter of fact, no big deal - until you get punched and then reality kicks in.
"Jake Paul has done a brilliant job of promoting himself, promoting this fight, evoking human emotion and I think he'll be a great promoter down the line. You had all these amazing fights on the undercard, all the female fighters getting their chance to shine, and I thought 'you know what, you're doing your job, you've got everyone talking about you.
"Jake Paul did this on a world stage so everything he said he'd do before, all the bragging and all promises he made to himself, now he's going to feel what normal fighters feel - the embarrassment, the uncomfortableness of the reality of what actually happened to him.
"So will he think he'll ever get to that [world] level? No, I don't. Do I think he's a domestic-level fighter? Yes, I do. I think now when he's shouting out all these bold requests about 'I want to fight Anthony Joshua', 'I want to fight Canelo', now he'll think long and hard about it.
"He's got himself into a position where he can generate that interest to get the fights on but, in reality now, he's just shown his level as well.
"He went in there and he had a reality check - and it was a serious reality check."
"Anthony Joshua couldn't have done any more.
"When you get in the ring with somebody that is constantly trying to just survive and run, you can't do anything about it.
"Our sport is built up of journeymen like what Jake Paul did - he's trying to survive; he's not trying to engage. So therefore, it's your job to cut him down and catch up to him.
"Joshua was open to a lot of criticism because this guy didn't come to engage. If he came to engage then it would have been a completely different story."
"We've had it every year - 'it could happen, it could happen'.
"It's the biggest fight in the world right now and neither of these guys have got a world title.
"It's the biggest fight out there but until you have just one of them saying 'yeah, we sat down and we've got a deal done', I don't believe it.
"I think it's hot air."
