‘It makes me wonder…’: Former UFC champion’s explosive claims in exposing Paul and Joshua bout

Former UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling has questioned the legitimacy of the blockbuster fight between Anthony Joshua and Jake Paul.

Paul’s toughest test in the ring ended emphatically, with the YouTuber-turned-boxer stopped by the former heavyweight champion last weekend in Miami.

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After a relatively competitive first two rounds, Joshua took command, systematically breaking Paul down before securing a sixth-round TKO that left Paul hospitalised with a broken jaw.

Watching it unfold, Sterling couldn’t help but question the fight.

“My direct thing when I was watching this was, where are the lines?” Sterling said on his YouTube channel.

“Because it felt like, you’ve got this Olympic-level, high-calibre level, world-class boxer in Anthony Joshua, who looks like he’s playing with his food, and people are sitting there eating it up like, ‘Oh, Jake’s doing a really good job. He’s moving his feet. He’s staying away.’ I’m just like, ‘Oh, you’re telling me this guy forgot how to cut the ring off?’

“… The way I feel, is that there’s just no way a guy of his calibre, of Anthony Joshua’s calibre of boxing, all the experience he has fighting all these other world-class guys, because we’ve seen how he fights them, and then Jake Paul comes in there, who just relatively started boxing – he’s pretty skilled for a guy at his level, for how long he’s been boxing – but not heavyweight level. Not fighting a guy who’s as well-decorated as Anthony Joshua.”

Paul spent much of the fight on the move, darting around the ring to avoid Joshua’s power, but the pressure eventually wore him down.

“It makes me wonder, was there a bet on, let’s just carry Jake Paul to X amount of round?” Sterling said.

“Make him look good, we want to entertain, and maybe there’s a lot of people putting money on going past three or four rounds, or something like this. I gotta speculate and wonder about all these other small little details, but I can’t bring myself to grasp.

“I give him respect. He got his jaw broken. You can’t fake that. But that’s what should have possibly happened in the first round, and that is my point.

“There are levels to boxing, and no disrespect to Jake Paul. Again, entertainer, great for the sport in terms of bringing eyeballs, but that should not have gone that long.”

Sterling continued to question the fight, believing there were instances where Joshua looked like he was deliberately pulling his punches.

“I don’t want to say (the fight was) rigged, I want to say there was an agreement,” Sterling said.

“… I’m literally watching him pull punches in the early rounds, and I was getting so mad. I was like there has to be a big bet, a big parlay, or some time agreement, paperwork.”

Sterling wasn’t alone in raising eyebrows over the fight, as former UFC champion Israel Adesanya also suggested that Joshua may have been taking it easy on Paul.

“Honest thoughts on the fight, I feel like AJ carried Jake Paul to the sixth round,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel.

“I know what my eyes see, and I understand fighting. But this is, I guess, the best result, or the most realistic result, I guess. But I know what my eyes were seeing in the early rounds and then now we’re here.

“Oh well. They made money. Everyone is happy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Whatever the case, the fight was another ratings smash for Netflix drawing a staggering 33 million viewers worldwide.

The streaming service reported that the event was its No. 1-ranked program in 45 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany, Australia, Mexico, and Argentina.