Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua Winners and Losers, Results
Jake Paul took his talents to South Beach.
And the opponent whom he chose to meet him there, former two-time heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua, seemed immeasurably more qualified to gauge those talents than the motley crew with whom the "Problem Child" had previously engaged.
Which presumably made for must-see TV for the folks at Netflix, who carried a four-bout main card from Miami's Kaseya Center that also included a 12-round women's title fight and a boxing matchup of two of Paul's former MMA-trained opponents, Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley, in a scheduled six-rounder at 195 pounds.
Paul faced Joshua after a dizzying competitive pivot from his originally scheduled foil, reigning 135-pound champion Gervonta Davis. "Tank" lost his spot amid a swirl of dubious publicity last month, which prompted Team Paul to challenge "AJ," who had not fought since a KO loss to Daniel Dubois in September 2024.
The B/R combat team was in the house alongside Biscayne Bay to take in the main show and a five-bout undercard and delivered a real-time list of the event's definitive winners and losers. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Winner: Pre-Midnight Massacre
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Three minutes before midnight, the insurgent turned into a pumpkin.
Paul ducked, dodged, and darted his way through the first half of his Friday night main event, but once the track meet ended and the fight began, it wasn't much of one.
The "Problem Child" gradually folded under the weight of the punishment doled out by his bigger, stronger, and more accomplished foe through the middle rounds, ultimately taking a 10 count from referee Chris Young at 1:31 of Round 6 of their scheduled eight-rounder.
Paul had been on the canvas a half dozen times from a variety of rolls, pushes and other pratfalls, but he was legitimately there in both the fifth and early in the sixth rounds, though he bravely rose each time to re-engage with the former two-time heavyweight champ.
It was all over midway through the sixth when Joshua worked Paul into a corner, landed a hard overhand right, and sapped whatever fight remained in his previously chatty foe.
"The end goal was to get Jake Paul, pin him down and hurt him," Joshua said. "It took a bit longer than expected. But the right hand found its destination. It takes a real man. You have to give Jake a lot of credit, but he came up against a real fighter tonight."
Paul, who spit a mouthful of blood after the fight and claimed to have sustained a broken jaw, stepped away from his typically combative persona and said he'd take a few months to recover before resuming a campaign for a title shot at 200 pounds.
"I gave it my all. I got my a-- beat but that's what this sport is about," he said. "A nice little a-- whipping from one of the best to ever do it."
Winner: Distance Dominance
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Alycia Baumgardner campaigned hard to defend her unified 130-pound title belts for 12 three-minute rounds in the final fight before Friday's main event.
Turns out Leila Beaudoin was willing to sign off for about half of that.
The Canadian challenger was fresh and energetic through the early going but gradually slowed down as the punishment mounted, leaving her bruised under both eyes, dropped by a hard right hand, and ultimately on the losing end of a wide decision.
It was Baumgardner's seventh straight win on the championship level and came in her first appearance since surrendering the WBC title after the organization refused to sanction a women's bout with the same duration and timing rules as men's bouts.
She retained her IBF, WBA and WBO belts with two 117-110 scores and one 118-109.
B/R's card also had it 118-109, giving the champion 10 of 12 rounds.
And it hardly seemed that narrow as Baumgardner outworked Beaudoin in close quarters, strafed her with clean shots from the outside, and widened the margins between the two—outside of an occasional flurry—as her opponent's gas tank emptied.
"I give myself an A-plus for showing up," Baumgardner said. "I pushed through. I believe in myself. I f**king love it. Three minutes was made for me and made from my style."
Loser: Classic Combat
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Friday's bid for nostalgia didn't amount to all that much.
Former MMA champions Anderson Silva and Tyron Woodley finally got a pop from the Kaseya Center audience after desultory reactions to the night's first six bouts, but it didn't last long once Silva began punching his winless (in the ring) opponent.
The 50-year-old Brazilian, still the longest-tenured titleholder in UFC history, worked Woodley into a corner and drilled him with a hard right uppercut and two follow-up shots that left the former welterweight champ staggering forward to the floor.
Woodley rose stiff-legged and appeared wobbly as referee Sam Burgos waved the fighters back together, but a commission official climbed onto the ring apron before they resumed action, and Burgos intervened once again to wave it off at 1:33 of the second round.
"I have young kids to push me hard every day," said Silva, who lost his final three fights before leaving the UFC in 2021. He resumed a long-dormant boxing career with subsequent wins over Tito Ortiz and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. before losing a decision to Paul in 2022.
Woodley, who lost his final four in the UFC, boxed Paul twice in 2021, losing a decision and then falling face-first in a highlight-reel KO.
He'd not had an official match since and took the fight with Silva on short notice after another former MMA star, Chris Weidman, was injured.
"I was yelling at my coach (about the stoppage), but they made the right call," Woodley said. "This is not what I expected. I expected to get the knockout."
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Loser: Record Revelation
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Not all impressive boxing records are created equal.
Oh sure, 130-pounder Kevin Cervantes arrived in Miami on Friday night with a gaudy 5-0 mark with five KOs—each inside of two-and-a-half rounds—but it didn't take much due diligence to realize that the Colombian emperor had no clothes.
Exactly four of the five foes upon whom Cervantes had built his record were winless as professionals when he fought them, and his other victim, 40-something Eduardo Pacheco, had won precisely two of his last 17 fights before they got together in February 2023.
So, when paired with a skilled foe with a legitimate Olympic pedigree, it's probably no surprise that Cervantes not only lost but wasn't particularly competitive in doing so.
MVP signee Jahmal Harvey was the beneficiary of the mismatch in the main card opener, controlling every second of every round on the way to a shutout nod that boosted him to 2-0 since he turned pro after reaching the quarterfinals of the 2024 Games in Paris.
But the winner found some fault with his own performance because he couldn't follow a first-round KO in his debut with another finish this time.
"I was getting frustrated," Harvey said. "Usually, I put guys away, or they go down. He was a tough guy."
Winner: Battling Bloody
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On the heels of Yokasta Valle's and Caroline Dubois' auditions to become the next face of women's boxing, Cherneka Johnson and Amanda Galle took a different tack.
They spent 10 rounds rearranging one another's features.
The frenetic bantamweights engaged in an active, bloody scrap that left the Kaseya Center ring spattered red and ended with Johnson retaining her undisputed claim to the 118-pound throne with a unanimous decision in the prelim feature.
A 30-year-old Australian billed as "Sugar Neeks," Johnson was aggressive and busy from bell to bell in nearly every round while earning scores of 99-91, 98-92, and 97-93 and defending her four-belt claim for the first time.
She won the WBA's share 19 months ago before picking up the IBF, WBC, and WBO titles with a ninth-round finish of Shurretta Metcalf at Madison Square Garden in July.
Both Johnson and Galle bled steadily from cuts that opened after a hard clash of heads in the second round. Referee Sparkle Lee brought in a ringside physician to look at Galle's wound early in the third, but the gashes never seemed severe enough to warrant stopping the bout in either fighter's direction.
"I was confident that I was winning all the rounds and we got the job done," Johnson said. "I was bleeding first, and I saw her bleeding, and I figured, 'OK, another bloodbath.' But I've been through it before. In fact, I've been through worse."
Winner: Mission Accomplished
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Avious Griffin was on a redemption mission.
The Tennessee-based welterweight was KO'd in his last fight six months ago and found himself returning in a cavernous Kaseya Center in the second of Friday's early prelims, but his performance indicated bigger things may be on the way.
The 32-year-old dusted once-beaten Justin Cardona in a single round for his 18th win and 17th KO, cracking the Robert Guerrero-trained Californian with a hard right hand that left him sagging to his knees along the ropes to take Chris Young's 10 count.
"We went back to the lab. Went back to the mirror," Griffin said. "We shadowboxed, worked on footwork, and took it slow."
He was stopped by Julian Rodriguez in the final round of a close fight in Anaheim in June and said he'd looked for an immediate rematch, but claimed Rodriguez turned down a $90,000 offer to run it back.
"He f--ked up my Christmas," Griffin said.
Winner: Expanding the Reach
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One small step for Brazil. One giant leap for Most Valuable Promotions.
Or something like that.
Regardless of how it's presented, cruiserweight Keno Marley's shutout decision over Diarra Davis Jr. in Friday's prelim opener and his pro debut could wind up far bigger than a footnote in the new era of social media-influenced boxing.
The 24-year-old stands 6'3", was a light heavyweight quarterfinalist in the 2020 Olympics, and is the first Brazilian signed by MVP. He's co-managed by South American influencer Whindersson Nunes, who took a ring turn of his own on the Paul-Mike Tyson card in Texas in 2024.
Nunes, incidentally, has nearly 57 million followers on Instagram, more than double Paul's 28.2 million.
Marley won each of his four rounds against Davis, who'd won two of his first three pro fights between April and August and is now 2-2.
Full Card Results
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Main Card
Anthony Joshua def. Jake Paul by KO, 1:31, Round 6
Alycia Baumgardner def. Leila Beaudoin by unanimous decision (117-110, 117-110, 118-109)
Anderson Silva def. Tyron Woodley by KO, 1:33, Round 2
Jahmal Harvey def. Kevin Cervantes by unanimous decision (60-53, 60-53, 60-53)
Preliminary Card
Cherneka Johnson def. Amanda Galle by unanimous decision (99-91, 98-92, 97-93)
Caroline Dubois def. Camila Panatta by unanimous decision (99-90, 99-90, 99-90)
Yokasta Valle def. Yadira Bustillos by majority decision (95-95, 98-92, 96-94)
Avious Griffin def. Justin Cardona by KO, 2:59, Round 1
Keno Marley def. Diarra Davis Jr. by unanimous decision (40-35, 40-35, 40-35)
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