Jake Paul said in a post-fight interview not that long ago that he WILL be the world champion in a few years. There are a number of ways to look at this: One is that he is talking trash just to make certain that he stays in the limelight and another is that he really is delusional and actually believes he is one of the best fighters in the world.
Now while I wouldn't want to face off against Paul myself, when i see his fights I don't feel like I am watching one of the best in the world and I also feel like his ranking in the top 15 is a complete farce considering that he has only ever fought one active boxer.
Love him or hate him though, Jake does have all the things he needs in order to actually force this fight to happen. He is a recognized professional boxer outside of his own home-made promotion of MVP, and he has the clout and the money necessary to make it happen.
The thing for Paul is that if he does this, and Joshua actually trains properly and goes out there trying to destroy this boy, it could be game over for Paul very quickly.
Now I would argue that Paul definitely doesn't need the money. He is immensely wealthy and even if he did suffer an embarrassing loss to Joshua he would still be very capable of returning to fighting ex MMA fighters for big bucks just like he has been doing.
There are pundits out there though, that are saying that Jake's team is serious and that there are some people out there that believe Joshua's next fight will be against Jake Paul.
Joshua's manager Eddie Hearn, has confirmed the that talks between the two teams are real and that even he, at first, thought it was just Jake chasing more clout to set himself up for a completely different fight. After a few talks though, Hearn himself has stated on the record "He (Jake Paul) thinks he can beat Anthony Joshua."
See this guy doing a sort of Michael Jackson lean back move? Well that is ex MMA champion Francis Ngannou who after going a full 10 rounds with what appeared to be a rather out-of-shape Tyson Fury, called out Anthony Joshua - who would later lay him the eff out in the 2nd round. If you turned up late to watch that fight you might have missed the entire thing.
Getting back to Jake Paul, there is no denying his marketability but I personally think a great deal of this is based upon the fact that he has a winning (although rather rigged) record.
Joshua's team has stipulated that if this fight is going to happen, it can't be with altered rules such as was the case vs 58 year old Mike Tyson when they shortened the rounds and made the gloves heavier than they usually would be. This would have to be a REAL and sanctioned boxing match.
Many might ask why would 2-time World Champion Anthony Johnson even entertain the notion of this fight as he stands to gain very little by winning. If he wins people will say "well of course you won, Jake Paul isn't really a boxer" and if he loses his reputation is forever gone.
But people with that opinion are missing what is probably the most important aspect of this entire thing. While everything is just speculation at this point one thing would definitely have to be true for this fight to have a chance at happening, Joshua would have to be guaranteed an absolutely astounding paycheck for taking the fight. We are talking north of $40 million.
So there is your motivation I suppose. Joshua has already lost at his crack at the Heavyweight titles via Usyk twice in 2021 and 2022 and he lost via KO in 2024 vs Daniel Dubois for a different title. All of these titles are now in Okeksandr Usyk's cabinet and there is no reason for the chance for that to change to go towards Anthony Joshua.
So if you are Anthony Joshua I think that you should be pushing for this fight to happen because well, it could be Joshua's biggest ever payday as well as one of his easiest fights. For Jake Paul, I don't understand the motivation other than to try to prove to everyone that he is a legit boxer. This is a very tall order though and I think this is why many of Paul's team are advising him to do something smaller for a while longer than maybe go after the big dogs later.
For me and millions of other people, I would love to see this fight happen in order to see Jake finally get some sense knocked into him.