For 10 years, the boxing world has clamored for the heavyweight megafight that is Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua.
The volume of that clamoring has varied, but there was never a time in the past decade when the fight wouldn’t have sold out London’s Wembley Stadium, when it wouldn’t have captured the imagination of the sporting public, when it wouldn’t have been a highly meaningful showdown between natural rivals on boxing’s grandest stage.
Seriously, 10 full years. On November 28, 2015, a 27-year-old Fury upset Wladimir Klitschko to become the lineal heavyweight champion of the world. Two weeks later, a 26-year-old Joshua TKO’d Dillian Whyte to confirm his standing as a serious contender, and in his next fight, he annihilated Charles Martin in two rounds to claim his first “world title” belt.
Ever since, ranging from “this could be the biggest fight in boxing history if it happens right now” to “the timing isn’t quite perfect, but it would still be a massive money maker,” Fury-Joshua has been on almost any fight fan’s short list.
At long last, all signs point to it happening in 2026.
And now that I’ve watched Joshua defeat Jake Paul, I am here to say we would all be better off without Fury-Joshua.
Ten years of waiting is a lot. It may feel like we’re pot-committed, to use poker parlance. But we are not. The sport of boxing can absolutely cut its losses rather than sink deeper.
Imagine a world in which Sugar Ray Leonard vs Roberto Duran III never happened. That’s the world we can live in if either AJ or Fury walks away from this mold-covered old peach at the bottom of the fruit bowl – instead of insisting on taking a bite.
The fact is, both of these former champs have crossed over into the “living off their names” portion of their boxing careers. I didn’t think we were all the way there yet with Joshua prior to Friday night’s abomination with Paul, but now it’s clear that we are.
I went two-for-three in my prefight assessment of how Joshua-Paul would unfold.
I was correct that Joshua couldn’t possibly lose (OK, I tabbed him at 99.8 percent certain to win). And I was correct that – despite plentiful insistence in the replies to my above-linked tweet that it would be a fixed fight – it would be on the up-and-up, with no chance Joshua trashes his boxing legacy and future earning power for some sort of payoff.
But I was wrong that AJ would be so vastly superior to Paul that he would blast him out within two rounds.
Yes, Paul’s movement-heavy game plan and the Olympic-swimming-pool-sized ring had something to do with how long it took Joshua to track down his victim.
But so did the stunning reality that Joshua just isn’t all that vastly superior to Paul anymore.
Nakisa Bidarian, the CEO of Paul’s promotional company Most Valuable Promotions, said at the postfight presser: “The reality is Jake lost because of the size difference, not because of the skill difference.”
Bidarian is at least a little bit correct. Joshua won because he could walk through Paul’s best shot (which Paul landed one time), because Paul couldn’t walk through his (Joshua also landed only one truly clean power punch in six rounds) and because Paul exhausted himself. If the former Disney Channel star had the gas to keep moving for all eight rounds, who knows if AJ ever catches him?
Joshua probably is the more skilled fighter, but … you couldn’t really tell it on this night. And if he is more skilled, he isn’t more skilled by much.
Joshua isn’t shot. But he’s at whatever stage comes immediately before shot. Against Paul, he wasn’t stepping into his jab – the punch that could have made this fight a lot easier – he was hesitant to let his hands go and his defensive reflexes were dulled enough that a relative novice landed cleanly a few times.
Some credit is due to Paul, who wasn’t excessively intimidated, who tried at times to land big punches, who proved elusive and who, though never remotely a threat to win, did make the fight feel vaguely competitive at times. He has come an admirably long way in five years of committing himself to boxing.
And Paul wasn’t about to quit, either – at least not until Joshua landed a right hand that broke his jaw in two places.
As a result of all this, the fight failed in what I saw as its mission: to end the unserious fight era. Paul will take time off to heal, but then he will be back, and he will probably challenge before too long for a cruiserweight belt. And depending on the opponent, he may even have a non-zero chance of winning. At the very least, he will have bettors believing he can win, which is great news for all of us ready to profit off his improperly priced opponent.
But if this was to some degree a moral victory for Paul, it was a moral defeat for Joshua and a one-sided ass-kicking suffered by the sport of boxing.
The entire main Netflix card (after a half-decent preshow on YouTube that presumably didn’t reach a large audience) was an embarrassment. It featured prospect Jahmal Harvey underwhelming after a fast start; Alycia Baumgardner and Leila Beaudoin making the case against three-minute rounds for women; 50-year-old non-boxer Anderson Silva outshining anyone in those other two bouts; frustrating stretches of time wasted with a deep bench of talking heads saying nothing profound; and repeated cuts to “celebrities” at ringside forcing me to Google them and try to find out what they’re famous for. Oh, and it featured an alarming amount of exposure to Bert Kreischer’s left nipple.
My 16-year-old son, who has never taken an interest in boxing, was watching with a few of his friends. After the fourth round of Joshua-Paul, he texted me: “What the actual hell am I watching?” It’s a sample size of one, of course, but that had to be the reaction of a majority of casual sports fans who tuned in.
One assumes not a single soul will cite December 19, 2025, as the night they became a boxing fan. And one assumes at least a handful of souls who have stuck with boxing for years or decades will point to December 19, 2025, as the night they could no longer justify devoting time to this sport.
Yes, most of us hardcore fans will separate Joshua-Paul from what we think of as real boxing. But if you came in teetering in your fandom, this was a night of perpetual cringe that could turn that teeter into a topple.
And now they want us to turn our attention to Joshua vs Fury. For his part, Joshua made a point afterward of insisting they do it next.
But Joshua, at 36, no longer has the physical talent to impress against an undersized carnival act, and Fury, at 37 … well, where do we begin?
Fury has retired too many times to count and hasn’t fought in a full year. Fury is coming off two defeats in a row. Fury, in his only official victory in the last three years, very nearly lost to a man making his professional debut.
The Fury circus had a certain charm, perhaps, when he was in his prime, establishing himself as the king of the heavyweight division, forcing discussions of his placement among the all-time greats. But now that he’s just a faded, semi-retired contender, is there still that upside to justify attending the circus?
The era of Fury and Joshua (as well as their contemporary Deontay Wilder) is over. Oleksandr Usyk cleaned out the division. It’s now up to him whether to try to turn back the next generation – as he began to do in July by squashing AJ conqueror Daniel Dubois. But Usyk showed everyone where the Fury-Joshua-Wilder crew stands.
Think of it this way: Moses Itauma is out there doing Moses Itauma things, and the powers-that-be in British boxing and in the sport as a whole want us to focus our energy on Fury and Joshua?
Fury vs Joshua is probably going to happen next year, and it’s going to make many millions – mostly for the people who need those millions the least.
But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Have we learned nothing from “Jurassic Park”?
Boxing has its own dinosaurs, and though you may close your eyes and picture them in their primes – AJ stopping Klitschko, Fury crushing Wilder, etc. – those versions of both fighters are long gone. All we’re left with are giant fossils.
Friday night’s “Judgment Day” rendered that verdict clearly for one of them.
So let’s turn the page. We’ve waited 10 years for Fury vs Joshua, and at this point, the sport of boxing is better served by forever wondering what could have been than by finding out what will be.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
