Anthony Joshua is used to dealing with Americans who talk a lot.

In 2016, Joshua won his first world title against Charles Martin, who compared himself to a deity before the fight and succumbed to prostration a few minutes in. There was also Kevin Johnson, who promised to beat Joshua badly enough to end his career and folded in two rounds.

That’s why handling Jake Paul should be familiar and easy.

“If you're going to talk that much, make sure you can back it up,” Joshua told Square Mile magazine after defeating Johnson.

That was when Joshua was young and inexperienced. At only 25 and with just 12 pro fights, Joshua was an Olympic gold medalist yet to prove his mettle. Wladimir Klitschko was still heavyweight champion, everyone was still making sense of Floyd Mayweather’s victory over Manny Pacquiao and the fight everyone really wanted was Canelo vs. Gennadiy Golovkin. To sum up, much has changed.

Joshua went from a breakout star at the 2012 Olympics in London to easily one of boxing’s hottest prospects and a likely heavyweight champion, which is the kind of pressure few overcome. He’s 36 now and he’s fought 20 times since stopping Johnson.

With four losses in his last 10 fights, Joshua’s ledger is easily assailed from the post-Mayweather standpoint of considering professional defeats a great and terrible shame. Joshua might even be dismissed as having caved under the pressure to become the next great British heavyweight.

That is, of course, ignoring his steady progression as a fighter and his consistent desire to challenge himself against quality opposition. At least until being generally dismissed following losses to Andy Ruiz and Oleksandr Usyk.

Against former UFC star Francis Ngannou, Joshua reminded everyone that he is indeed a fighter. It might have been easier to prove against a ring debutant, but he proved it all the same.

That might be why so many fans and pundits struggle to consider Paul a fighter. Relatively speaking, Paul was fast-tracked to the top without much experience and featured prominently on broadcasts that could have, at least in theory, given time to fighters who already braved the onslaught of pro boxing.

The irony is that Joshua was once assailed by pockets of boxing’s media for the exact same thing.

Similarly, there exists no greater insult to boxing fans in general than calling Paul a fighter. The only group of people using “YouTuber” as a harder pejorative is middle-aged parents. He’s only fought mixed martial artists and geriatric hospice patients, they say, while simultaneously living the collective fantasy that every fighter who steps through the ropes is a sacred warrior.

Paul’s 12-1 record was manufactured and engineered the same way any money-making commodity with boxing gloves would be. And like any of them, Paul faces all of the same dangers, short- and long-term.

Perhaps the funniest part about Joshua-Paul is how Paul’s mixture of righteous avenger and aggravating heel has been thoroughly disrupted by the reality of the size disparity between them and the unexpected upgrade from the laughably smaller Gervonta Davis. The extracurricular issues “Tank” brought to the table are gone, and all that remains for Paul is an impossible mountain to climb.

The most likely outcome, by a country mile, is Joshua celebrating yet another instance of punishing a person foolish enough to believe they could jump head-first into shark-infested water with a gaping wound. Paul will most likely suffer his first knockout defeat. And should that happen, it doesn’t do much to add or subtract from Joshua’s legacy. At most, he becomes a fan favorite executioner of the wicked, though that’s not anything to yawn at.

Beyond his insistence on pushing women’s boxing into the spotlight, Paul’s greatest achievement is exposing how far boxing’s star-making formula tends to diverge from the poetic version of a warrior’s path. Learning how to conduct a symphony can take years or even decades, yet Paul grabbed the baton and somehow made it work as a novice. To the chagrin of basically everyone else, yes, but successfully enough that he cannot be simply wished away.

And then there’s the abject horror of considering Paul could land a ridiculous bomb and win the fight legitimately. It’s a possibility so remote and terrifying that the fallout might actually be catastrophic for multiple entities involved. It’s the only outcome that palpably changes anything for either fighter’s career.

It almost seems wasteful for Joshua to spend his ever-shortening time on someone like Paul. Joshua can think it over as he’s enjoying the rumored tens of millions of dollars they’ll both be making.

No matter what happens between Joshua and Paul, nothing can erase their accomplishments. It’s a concept frequently encountered when great fighters inevitably carry on too long and suffer losses. Many say a fighter’s legacy is ruined or somehow negated, but how can deeds be undone? A sport’s shortcomings in aiding ex-fighters reflects on the sport itself and its infrastructure, not the fighters.

Anthony Joshua picked up the pieces of the heavyweight division Tyson Fury left scattered about. He got up from knockdowns to win and refused to give in when every neuron told him he should. He also secured financial stability for generations through becoming one of the most popular British fighters of all time.

Jake Paul is a fighter. He just got a lot quieter, that’s all.