Judging by the latest narrative, Jake Paul has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. A strain of commentary reframes his latest setback as a badge of honor. Paul and his team don’t seem to discourage claims that he may have won at least two rounds against Anthony Joshua. Increasingly, however, that narrative has begun to face backlash. A few believe the former Disney star is undeserving of such praise.

Paul suffered a sixth-round knockout loss at the hands of Joshua. The opening round saw him circling the ring, fending off Joshua’s probing attacks with occasional flurries of his own. But the fight took a decisive turn in the latter half. As fatigue set in, Paul struggled to answer the questions Joshua posed. The end came swiftly when a blistering combination from the English heavyweight floored him. To former light middleweight champion and current boxing analyst Sergio Mora, the outcome was straightforward and should be judged exactly as it unfolded – an expected loss for Jake Paul.

Mora calls out the Jake Paul applause

Mora did not hold back in his post-fight assessment. On the latest episode of DAZN’s The Fighter & The Writer, host Chris Mannix posed a blunt question: “Give me your loser of the week.” Mora felt the easy answer would be Jake Paul. But that would be way too convenient.

“He (Jake) got paid so much money that I can’t make him the loser of the week,” Mora explained. Instead, he pointed the finger at those who have relentlessly propped Paul up and inflated his standing. They are the real losers, he said. The group included several figures from the boxing world whom he otherwise respected.

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Calling the reaction “ridiculous,” Mora elaborated: “There are a lot of people…still trying to make an excuse for how good Jake Paul looked, that he didn’t look as bad, that he actually won a couple of rounds, that he landed some punches on Anthony Joshua, and that Anthony Joshua didn’t look as good because Jake Paul didn’t make him look all that good.”

In Mora’s view, the praise has gone too far. Genuine fighters, those who have spent years honing their craft in the ring, totally disagree.

How the Jake Paul hype took hold

Though Mora stopped short of naming names, one figure inevitably surfaced: Ring Magazine’s Max Kellerman. On the latest episode of Inside the Ring, Kellerman opened with a disclaimer: “Guys, let me come out and say the story to me coming out of this fight is Jake Paul. This dude is a maniac in the best sense of the word. And I’m not going to try and hear any Jake Paul slander today on the show, guys.”

What followed was a spirited argument about how Paul had managed to reshape the narrative after sharing the ring with Anthony Joshua, a former heavyweight champion who remains active at the highest level.

For much of his boxing journey, Paul has been a lightning rod for criticism. Many have targeted his choice of opponents, who were mostly retired or semi-retired fighters, faded names, and former MMA champions. Even his first professional loss came at the hands of a boxer who was far from elite.

After the Mike Tyson bout, Paul attempted to steady his reputation with a win over Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a former world champion. That goodwill evaporated quickly when a proposed exhibition with lightweight star Gervonta Davis turned him into a punchline. Against that backdrop, Paul’s decision to face one of boxing’s most fearsome punchers and survive several rounds has been enough for some to recast the outcome as a moral victory. Whether that reframing holds weight, however, remains a matter of sharp debate.