MIAMI — For most pundits, there wasn’t much question as to how Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul would play out.

And while there have been many occasions where conventional wisdom didn’t prevail, Friday was not one of them.

It took much longer than many expected, but Joshua handled business like he was widely expected to, dropping Paul four times before stopping him with 1:31 left in the sixth round at Kaseya Center on Netflix. It was the highest grossing boxing event at the venue, according to Most Valuable Promotions.

“The end goal was to get Jake Paul, pin him down and hurt him,” Joshua said. "That had been the request leading up, and that was on my mind. It took a bit longer than expected, but the right hand finally found the destination.”

Paul was on his bike with his back to the ropes for most of the first three rounds, with Joshua following him around, as neither fighter landed anything of significance outside of some occasional punches to the body. Paul was able to make Joshua miss and closed the gap to clinch and avoid exchanging with the 6-foot-6 heavyweight.

The action started to pick up in the fourth round with Paul landing a pair of clean right hands, though, he also found himself on the canvas on numerous occasions after reaching for Joshua’s legs.

One instance led to a stoppage in the action after Joshua landed on top of Paul as both fell to the canvas. Moments later, Paul shot at Joshua’s legs again and the former champion threw punches to his body as he was down, prompting a warning to both fighters from referee Christopher Young.

In the fifth round, Paul looked worse for wear from constantly being on the move and clinching and appeared to be hurt to the body. Joshua pressed the action and dropped Paul for the first time with a body shot. Moments later, he went to the canvas again from a straight hand.

At the beginning of the sixth, Paul dove at Joshua’s legs again and went down. Around the midway point, Joshua landed a blistering straight right hand that put Paul to the canvas for good. Paul’s corner also was on the apron to stop the fight had Young opted to let the action continue.

After the fight, Joshua gave Paul respect for stepping in the ring with him. Paul said during the post-fight interview that he believes he broke his jaw. MVP co-founder Nakisa Bidarian said Paul drove himself to the hospital.

“Jake Paul, he's done really well tonight,” Joshua said. “I want to give him his props. He got up time and time again. It was difficult in there for him, but he kept on trying to find a way. It takes a real man to do that. Anyone who laces up the gloves, we always say we give them their respect. We have to give Jake his respect for trying. Well done, but he came up against a real fighter tonight.”

Joshua (29-4, 25 KOs) was fighting for the first time since his fifth-round knockout loss to former IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium in September of last year. Paul (12-2, 7 KOs) was riding a six-fight winning streak heading into the monumental task of facing the former two-time unified heavyweight champion.

Joshua, 36, will presumably move on to another fight in early 2026, and should he emerge from that fight victorious, it could set the stage for him to finally face fellow all-time great British heavyweight, former Ring Magazine and WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (34-2, 24 KOs) in one of the biggest fights in United Kingdom history.

Joshua called for Fury to take the verbal back and forth from social media to the ring.

“If Tyson Fury is as serious as he thinks he is and he wants to put down his Twitter fingers, and put on some gloves and come and fight one of the realest fighters that will take on any challenge, step in the ring with me next if you’re a real bad boy.

"Don’t do all that talking, 'AJ this, AJ that.' Let’s see you in the ring and talk with your fists.“