Anthony Joshua had American heavyweight Cassius Chaney on his shortlist before accepting a surprise fight with YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in Miami next month.
Joshua, a two-time unified world heavyweight champion, has announced that he will fight Paul on Friday, December 19th in Miami. This will be Joshua’s first fight since his IBF world title challenge ended in a KO loss to Daniel Dubois last September.
Paul was an unexpected opponent for Joshua, who won Olympic gold in the super heavyweight division in 2012, and Cheney confirmed that Paul was on Joshua’s shortlist of potential opponents next.
Chaney, 38, from Baltimore, has fought at heavyweight throughout his professional career, which began in 2015. He has 24 wins and 3 losses out of 27 fights and has never been stopped.
Chaney’s most notable win was a knockout win over former WBA heavyweight titleholder Trevor Bryan in 2023.
He told Sky Sports he hopes to secure a potential match against Joshua in the David Benavidez-Anthony Yarde fight in Saudi Arabia this weekend.
“It’s a shame to lose a great opportunity, but okay, that’s business,” Cheney told Sky Sports. “I’m glad to be knocking on the door. Everything will work out in the end.”
Okolie offers to spar with Paul to ‘help him’ for Anthony Joshua
Lawrence Okolie (Photo: Lee Dorney/Queensbury)
World No. 1-ranked heavyweight Lawrence Okolie offered to spar with Paul in preparation for his fight with Joshua.
Okolie is a former cruiserweight world champion and also competes in the new “bridgerweight” division. He is currently the No. 1 contender in the WBC heavyweight rankings.
He has known Joshua for a long time, having sparred with the former unified heavyweight world champion since the early days of his amateur career.
But he is curious to know what motivated Paul to fight Joshua.
“It’s crazy. I want to go help Jake Paul and give him a chance. I want to go to Puerto Rico. What I don’t want to happen to him anyway is if AJ flips the switch and gets completely destroyed in a round or something,” Okolie said.
“I want him to get a feel for what it’s like to compete against a world-class heavyweight.
“I know the fight is coming up. I think it’s the same day, but I’m going to be out for a few weeks. I want to know what Jake Paul had to say to me. This big, towering guy, a 250-pound muscleman from England, an Olympic gold medalist, a former two-time heavyweight world champion, he’s going to fight in front of millions of fans.”
“I want to know. Maybe he has a secret that I don’t know.”
He realizes how much Paul, a social media star but actually a novice professional boxer, should not mess with Joshua.
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Sky Sports’ Jonny Nelson discusses Anthony Joshua’s motivations for fighting Jake Paul on December 19th and shares his predictions
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the difference in skill, the difference in size, the difference in every sense of the word isn’t outrageous,” Okolie said.
“But you know, something crazier happened. So let’s take a look.”
However, he doesn’t expect Joshua to start right away and thinks it could last longer than the round.
“From what I’ve gathered about AJ, I don’t think he’s going to go out there and say, ‘I’m going to hit him with a hard right hand and be done with it in 30 seconds,'” Okolie said.
But he added: “But if Jake Paul starts touching him, I think it’s OK (let’s go). (Joshua) hasn’t been in the ring in a while, so he might be going to get in the ring as practice. But if Jake Paul clips him and doesn’t take him off the first time he hits him hard, I think that’s when it gets interesting.”
“If Jake Paul hits him and doesn’t knock him out on the first shot, it’s going to be a long night.
“It seems crazy, but crazier things have happened.”
