One of the last fights of 2025 will also be the weirdest.

Jake Paul vs. Anthony Joshua is official.

In one corner stands a former two-time world heavyweight champion, a 2012 Olympic gold medalist, and a man with division-defining wins over Wladimir Klitschko, Joseph Parker and Alexander Povetkin. He’s Anthony Joshua — he’s him — and he’s what peak male athletic performance looks like.

Across from him on Dec. 19 will be a 12-1 boxing novice who started out against a fellow creator, knocked out a basketball player and beat a retired wrestler, but has been punching up ever since. He’s Jake Paul, and you may not like it, but this is what the face of American boxing currently looks like.

Oh, don’t act surprised. You know he is, too. He’s the fighter with America’s biggest platform, biggest reach and biggest momentum.

Paul’s next fight, a legitimate and sanctioned showdown set to take place at the Kaseya Center in Miami, comes only weeks after MVP scrapped an exhibition with Gervonta “Tank” Davis following yet another round of domestic violence allegations against Davis.

Against Joshua, there will be no outside-of-the-ring pre-fight chaos, no exhibition loopholes, and no weight-class absurdity. Just two men, in one ring, swapping slugs until one of them — likely Paul — is staring up at cartoon stars and wondering if he just got clattered with a rogue anvil.

“This isn’t an AI simulation,” Paul said in a statement Monday. “When I beat Anthony Joshua, every doubt disappears, and no one can deny me the opportunity to fight for a world title.”

Paul is used to polarizing opinion, but this is unquestionably the most dangerous fight of his life.

The 28-year-old will be an anomaly in the annals of boxing history when people look back and see wins over the likes of Ben Askren, Andrew August and Ryan Bourland in the years building up to a season's beatings bout against a still-active, still-contending-for-world-titles Joshua.

“Jake or anyone can get this work,” Joshua said Monday. “No mercy … I’m about to break the internet over Jake Paul’s face.”

Paul has fought no active world title contenders. He has no sanctioned wins at the elite level, and continually fends off criticism that he's cosplaying as a fighter.

And yet if boxing were judged on deal-making, impact, activity and platform power, Paul is already a superstar. We’ve even written before how he’s America’s ultimate success story.

He is, uniquely, one of the few fighters in any combat sport who can book a date first, find an opponent later and still keep the broadcaster. That level of leverage typically belongs to the UFC, an entire organization. Paul canceled the "Tank" show and somehow kept ahold of Netflix.

And now he has delivered Joshua, the most commercially successful heavyweight of boxing's modern era, to that streaming behemoth. Away from the Brit's broadcast partners at DAZN, even.

What makes all of this even more astonishing is that Paul is thriving while legacy institutions circle the drain.

Top Rank, the company that promoted Muhammad Ali, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, remains stuck in a broadcast abyss without a current deal. Premier Boxing Champions, founded by music mogul Al Haymon, has a limited output. The business of boxing in the U.S. is mostly in disarray, yet Paul still secured for himself the largest entertainment platform on the planet.

His reach speaks for itself. He has more than 20 million YouTube subscribers and approximately 50 million followers elsewhere. Through MVP, he runs an active promotional outfit that has done more for women’s boxing than most major promoters have in a decade.

Despite Netflix’s limited foray into the fight game, Paul — not Top Rank, not PBC, not Matchroom — is the figure they keep returning to. First for Mike Tyson. Then for an all-women’s card with Katie Taylor and MVP queen Amanda Serrano’s trilogy. And now for Joshua.

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Paul’s activity over the past 18 months has seen him defeat BKFC's own "King of Violence" Mike Perry, out-point Tyson, and then out-work the former world middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. But none of it will prepare him for what Joshua will bring to the ring.

Regardless, what it says about Paul is undeniable.

The sport orbits around "El Gallo de Dorado" as much as it orbits "Canelo."

Paul moves platforms faster than Top Rank, generates buzz like PBC, but harnesses social media more effectively than both combined, and he does it without the Saudi sovereign wealth that has boosted European promotional vehicles via boxing financier Turki Alalshikh.

While America’s traditional stars, "Canelo" and "Tank," drift through declining visibility or troubled primes, Paul continues to dominate cultural oxygen.

No, he’s not the sport’s best fighter. And he never will be. But he is active, disruptive and influencing boxing again and again.

Paul’s power is real — but likely temporary.

Next month, Joshua will surely do to Paul what Joshua did to Francis Ngannou: Detonate him with a basic one-two, flatten him in front of millions, and scupper whatever remains of Paul’s ambitions as a prizefighter.

But Paul will still win something. He keeps MVP’s platform on Netflix, likely so he can continue showcasing the best of women’s boxing on the world’s biggest streaming service.

For better or worse, the real face of American boxing just stood up — and somehow, it’s Jake Paul.