Is Jake Paul the unluckiest fighter in boxing? History might suggest so. First, Canelo Alvarez publicly entertained Paul’s challenge—only to pivot and sign a multi-fight deal with Turki Alalshikh. Then came the Gervonta Davis saga. Paul secured a massive matchup with ‘Tank.’ But the bout collapsed after Davis faced legal issues following a lawsuit from his ex-girlfriend. Now, Anthony Joshua has entered the picture.

Paul and Joshua are scheduled to meet on December 19 at the Kaseya Center in Miami, live on Netflix. Unlike the Davis matchup, this one is a full professional boxing bout at heavyweight—a fight the public is collectively excited about. But trouble may be brewing again. Reports suggest that ‘The Problem Child’ has suffered an injury, casting doubt on whether the fight will go ahead with less than two weeks to go.

Jake Paul suffered an injury during sparring with a former world champion

The 28-year-old recently appeared on a KICK livestream with Adin Ross, where ‘El Gallo’ showed up sporting a noticeably swollen black eye. When Ross asked about it, Paul explained the story behind the injury. “I’m sparring a bunch of world champion heavyweights,” Paul told Ross during the stream. “I think that I think Lawrence Okolie did that to me. He’s like 6’6″, 270.” 

Okolie, of course, is a former WBO cruiserweight and the WBC bridgerweight champion. He also currently holds the WBC Silver heavyweight title. Along with ‘The Sauce,’ Paul has previously revealed that he brought in Jared Anderson and Frank Sanchez to help prepare for the Anthony Joshua fight. Reagrdless, later in the stream, Paul shared another detail. 

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He currently weighs 215 pounds and plans to come in between 218 and 220 pounds on fight night. For comparison, Anthony Joshua typically weighs around 250 pounds for his bouts. This size gap led Jake Paul to conclude the matchup will be a “pretty wild fight.” Paul is coming off a unanimous decision win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. earlier this year at cruiserweight. 

Meanwhile, Joshua entered the bout following a fifth-round stoppage loss to Daniel Dubois in late 2024. Coming back to Okolie, he previously reflected on sparring with Jake Paul.

Lawrence Okolie claims he wants to give Paul a fighting chance

Lawrence Okolie says his decision to join Jake Paul’s Miami fight camp isn’t about clout. Rather, it’s about giving the YouTuber-turned-boxer a fighting chance before he steps in against Anthony Joshua. Okolie revealed that he felt compelled to help Paul prepare for a world-class heavyweight. 

“I want to go help Jake Paul, give him a chance. I want to go out there to Puerto Rico,” he told ESPN. More importantly, he doesn’t want Paul to walk blindly into danger. “What I don’t want to happen to him is he gets absolutely destroyed in a round or whatever if AJ turns it on,” Okolie added.

Instead, his goal is to give Paul a realistic feel of elite heavyweight power and pressure. “I want him to have a decent feeling of what it’s like to be in there with a world-class heavyweight beforehand,” he said.

It appears Jake Paul is doing everything he can and more for the Anthony Joshua fight. However, he might want to dial it down a little because he doesn’t exactly have the best history with cancelled fights. What do you think of Paul’s black eye?