Anthony Joshua’s KO of Jake Paul does big numbers on Netflix
Dec 23, 2025 • 2:51 PM ET
Esther Lin / Most Valuable PromotionsIt might not have been much of a fight, but Friday's bizarre eight-round heavyweight contest between Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul was at least watched by lots of people, according to reports.
The fight, which was shown on streaming service Netflix, drew an audience of 33 million Live+1 viewers globally from opening to closing bell, per VideoAmp and Netflix. This meant that it reached Netflix’s Top 10 in 91 countries and ranked number one in 45 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Australia, Mexico, and Argentina. In addition to that, Joshua vs. Paul generated 1.25 billion impressions across Netflix’s global social channels and was a top trending topic on X worldwide, trending #1 in the US, UK, and Brazil.
As for the fight itself, Joshua’s sixth-round knockout of Paul was every bit as pointless and predictable as most of us believed it would be going in. It ended with a smile and a shrug from Joshua, 29-4 (26 KOs), as well as a broken jaw for Paul, whose record now reads 12-2 (7 KOs).
Elliot Worsell is a boxing writer whose byline first appeared in Boxing News magazine at the age of 17. He has, in the 20 years since, written for various publications, worked as press officer for two world heavyweight champions and won four first-place BWAA (Boxing Writers Association of America) awards. In addition to his boxing writing, Worsell has written about mixed martial arts for Fighters Only magazine and UFC.com, as well as worked as a publicist for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). He has also written two non-fiction books, one of which, “Dog Rounds,” was shortlisted at the British Sports Book Awards in 2018.
