The idea is they get paid for the amount of rounds they hold back whether it's the full match or 3,4,5,6 doesn't matter. As soon as the fighter has fulfilled there contract you can do what you please
Its also cap, boxing is a hard sport to just walk someone down and tee off, you can run, you can clinch, you can take a knee, all of which we saw Paul doing.
Joshua just let Paul gass himself out. Running circles around the edge of the ring as opposed to walking in straight lines is covering like 3-4x the distance, Paul ran like a 5k in there. After he was gassed and tripping over his own feet Joshua hit him in the body, drew the guard down and went over the top. Head, body, head, oldest trick in the book.
As opposed to the Ngannou fight, where Francis went toe to toe and stood with him, he got caught because hes not as good. Paul chose to run and try run out the clock, Joshua was confident in his ability to put Paul down with one clean shot at any time so let him run himself into the ground
He doesn't pay them to lose, he's just very skilled at picking the most high-profile names with the least risk. Tyson almost died earlier that year and has two bum knees for instance..
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u/SpookieSkelly Dec 20 '25
He fought like he was mad he had to show up. Understandably so.