Jake Paul’s mum reveals AJ apology amid rant at Eddie Hearn | Boxing | Sport

Jake Paul’s mum, Pam Stepnick, revealed that Anthony Joshua apologised to her after claiming victory over Jake Paul in their fight in Miami last Friday. The 28-year-old recorded the second defeat of his professional career – his first coming against Tommy Fury in 2023 – and required surgery after Joshua fractured his jaw in two places. Paul opened the fight strongly, leaving Joshua struggling to slow him down in the early rounds, though the American himself repeatedly battled to stay on his feet as the bout wore on.

“It was a great experience, I learnt a lot in there,” Paul said afterward. “I wish I had more than like three weeks to put on more muscle so I could really hit him. My biggest mistake was not doing altitude training. I see where I could have done better so I’m a little disappointed but I also know how good he is. I had him wobbled at one point, but he had his hands up better this fight.”

Speaking about the bout on the Impaulsive podcast, hosted by Logan Paul, Jake’s brother, Stepnick praised Joshua’s sportsmanship, revealing that he apologised to her after the fight. “Even Anthony Joshua had some class and apologised to me,” she said. “He worked his way through the crowd, and came up to me and said: ‘mum it’s just a fight game. I’ve been beat up and knocked out, it is what it is. He’s got that heart, he’s a strong guy.'”

Stepnick also made her feelings clear over Eddie Hearn, adding: “As a mum, my aggression comes out too. Like I want to get I want to get in that ring and punch Eddie Hearn for instance. Because I don’t like his smug face. He literally thinks he’s better than everyone in the world.

“Jake’s over there struggling and he’s sitting over there smiling like the cat who swallowed the cream. Guess what? Did he f****** get in the ring?”

That was only Paul’s 14th professional fight since debuting in 2020, whereas Joshua entered the bout with 32 pro contests, boasting 28 wins – 25 of them by knockout. After undergoing jaw surgery, Paul said it felt ‘like a baseball is in there,’ with visible swelling on the lower left side of his face.

However, rumours had circulated before the fight that Joshua had agreed to take it easy, claims both camps firmly denied. The speculation has persisted, and Paul’s business partner, Nakisa Bidarian, has now vowed to take action. “Our lawyers are actively going after a number of people, one who claims to be a lawyer himself online… it was a post that had around 200,000 likes,” he told the Ariel Helwani show. “Basically, the post claimed there was an agreement for AJ not to knock out Jake but AJ disregarded it and decided to forego his payday to knock out Jake Paul. It’s pretty astonishing what people will say.

“There has never once in Jake Paul’s career been any talk of that sort, of anything to do with the fight being anything but a real fight that has the same situation as any professional fight. That’s exactly the same thing here with the Anthony Joshua fight. It is just beyond mind-blowing that people would think that. Anthony Joshua was on record saying that if he didn’t finish him in the first round, that would be disappointing, that it would be a failure. The narrative changed as we got closer to fight night and post-fight and I understand why, but they were pretty adamant it would take max two rounds to knock out Jake Paul.”