Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua: Spectacle & serious risk looms large over Miami fight

Paul is clear-eyed about the reality of Friday. “This is the hardest opponent, hardest challenge, most crazy thing I’ve ever done in my career,” he says.

But the discomfort this fight has generated is familiar territory.

Controversy has always been his fuel. He did not flinch at the backlash when he fought a near-pension age Mike Tyson, and he does not appear to care now.

“Who even are these boxing purists?” he jokes. “How pure are they? Do they go to church or something?”

Paul’s confidence appears unshakeable. For heavyweight great Lennox Lewis, however, that confidence edges into “delusion”.

“Anthony Joshua doesn’t have two left feet, and he can punch very hard,” Lewis says.

“He’s going to find out as soon as he gets hit.”

And there has been some unease within the Paul’s camp. Bidarian thought his business partner “was crazy” when it was first raised in March.

“Jake and I are constantly thinking about two, three, four years down the road and how we roadmap his rise to the top of the sport and that completely caught me out of left field,” Bidarian says.

Paul’s fights are frequently accompanied by unsubstantiated claims they are “scripted”.

Fans on Miami’s beachfront described the fight as “fake” but Paul, as ever, spins the suspicion into his favour.

“I take it as a compliment that I am doing something so outrageous and so crazy that people have to write it off,” he said.

Paul has felt like the A-side this week. In public workouts, Joshua walked out before him.

At media events, Joshua hadn’t finished speaking before Paul was ushered in.

For some hardcore boxing fans, that inversion is part of the problem.

They want the Paul experiment to end. They want the hierarchy restored. They want proof that boxing still has levels you cannot skip, no matter how many followers you bring with you.

“I’m carrying boxing on my back,” has been Joshua’s mantra all week.

Friday night will decide whether that hierarchy can be restored.