5 Live Boxing with Steve Bunce - Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua: Eddie Hearn

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

Is a two-time heavyweight world champion really fighting a YouTuber-turned-boxer in Miami this weekend? Yes. And that’s where Buncey is as fight week for Jake Paul v Anthony Joshua gets underway. To kick things off, he sits down with AJ’s long-time promoter Eddie Hearn to explain how the fight came about and to reflect on the highs and lows of their 12-year working relationship.

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turn on ad spend of major ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash broadcast. That's LinkedIn.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. This podcast is sponsored by pocket hose. I'm a mom and a homeowner, so I feel like I'm always outside using a hose for something. And I used to go through a new hose every year because of kings and tangles.

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Santa never stops delivering fights. Lagos leads, Accra, and obviously. Miami. Well, guess where I am? Yep, you got it. I'm in Miami. And it's storming. I'm not trying to make you feel sorry for me. I'm just telling you, it's not sunny, it's storming. And it's AJ. Anthony Joshua, the two-time heavyweight champion of the world against one of boxing's biggest attractions. No, I'm not announcing the Tyson Fury fight. It's Jake Paul. And that's true, by the way. He is one of boxing's biggest attractions. Now, this week in Miami is well and truly underway. Now, I usually sit down with Barry Jones or Darren Barker or Richie Wood or no.

I've sacked the trio, which of course means none of them are in Miami. And instead I've sat down with Eddie Hearn, AJ's lifelong promoter to talk about this deal, which is possibly one of the most lucrative deals in boxing history. Hey, you might not like that, but it's true. And also to talk about these first days, the first time he met AJ, the first time he saw AJ. The first time he realized AJ was going to win world titles. I'm Steve Bunce and this is a very special five live boxing. Thanks for joining me, Ed. Let's just rewind. How do we get here? We've got Jake Paul, Anthony Joshua at the weekend. How did we get? I know we've done it before, but just give me a recap. Give me the bullet points. Well, I mean, about four months ago, maybe

five months ago, Jake Paul's team reached out to me and they've kind of mentioned that they want to by Anthony Joshua in interviews and and I was just like, whatever. And then they came on, they said, look, we'd like to do the AJ Jake Paul fight. And I sort of, I was like, you never know whether they really are sort of bringing it up for clout

or whatever they're doing. And they said, look, we think February or March of next year. I said, look, it's only whatever it was, September or August. I said, if you want to do it, you don't want to do it in November, December, because we've got our own plans for next year, which hopefully includes

Tyson Fury. No, no, you know. And then all of a sudden, bang, the Giovanta Davis news came out and I thought, oh God, so they were pulling our plonker. You know, they were talking about fighting Anthony Joshua,

and now they're fighting 135 pounds. It goes 12 inches shorter. Exactly. So I thought, you know, whatever. Then obviously started to see all the rumblings of Javenta Davis potentially out. And when I saw this, I thought, I wonder if we'll get the call.

And the call came. So you wait, you, yeah, I never reached out to them because I always wanted the ability and the excuse to say this ain't our idea you know and then Nikisa came on

and said look would you be interested then he talked about November the 15th or 14th whatever it was which was quite a quick turnaround for us would have been about two week turnaround yeah and then but we were planning to fight anyway in November

this is this secret fight there but found out about it's no longer secret AJ just wanted to have an eight round he just wanted to wrap up the hands go knock someone out have a bit of work with a new team and then going to 2026. So we were really ready

to be honest with you. I think they thought we weren't ready. But we were ready. Then they said it was going to be December. I thought perfect. But then, you know, you still I'm still don't trust these guys. But it's just, it just seemed,

it honestly seemed too good to be true, really. Then we started talking about the money. And obviously we're exclusive to DeZone. So we had to talk to them because obviously this fight's on Netflix. and eventually we got to a point where I started thinking to myself this actually could happen and even people around me were going there's no way he'll sign Jake Paul there's no way he'll sign

and then lo and behold the email comes through with the signature on and obviously we can get house back quick enough and I just relax during all of this like saying you just just keep me informed or was he getting materially involved he doesn't like to deal with any stuff like that I mean he's the decision maker he's the boss but ultimately he's got the trust in the team to say

say you present to me what you think's right. And we had a conversation and, you know, he'll often say to me, what do you think? And I'll just say, we have to take it. I mean, we have to take it. Like what are we waiting for? We've got huge profile. You've got the activity you want. You've got one of the biggest paydays of your career.

And then we go back into 2026 with normal business resumed. And that was it. We were in. And then since that time, since that contract came through, as you say, on the fax machine, as we like still calling it, since that time, have you been waiting for a call to say, actually, there's a problem, actually?

I mean, oh, did you think that's it? We're done now. There was loads of rumours, and we were told quite often that Jake Paul would pull out, you know, and I was thinking, you know, Netflix are filming every day. But the press conference alone costs tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Like, this is a big move just to sort of pretend that you were actually going to. take it. It's going to hurt him with Netflix. Yeah, and I think when you look

at the training camps that he has, I mean, you know, one of the, one of the perception of this fight is, oh, you know, this is just so dangerous.

And of course it's dangerous. Any fight in age. But this is a guy that's sparring heavyweights every day. Yeah. It's not like he's

never been hit before by a big heavyweight. He's just never been hit with 10 ounce gloves on by Anthony Joshua. That's the difference. But this is a guy who I give him credit

as top 60 cruiserweight in the world. something like that. Yeah, that's valid. And, you know, the guy that we were going to fight was top 100 heavyweight. Yeah.

But he was probably better than Jake Paul. So, you know, the truth is, is we don't really know how Jake Paul will get on. He may do okay. He may go a few rounds. He may, you know, he might come out of the fight and people go, do you know what?

Fair play. He gave it a go there. He's decent. Or he might get flattened inside 45 seconds. Yeah. So, you know, AJ's not necessarily the guy to come out. like a flailing lunatic

but he's aggressive and once he backs you up and sees the shot as we saw with Angano he's going to throw it. That's the blueprint in many ways that a holding Garno thing not to not to show anything and just take your time be patient and watch them get weary in front of you Lawrence Ocoli was in camp with him

and it was noticeable just how big I mean Lawrence is a big cruiser anyway another big he was in camp of him have any of those or their people spoken to or have you or have you reached out to any of them Just to get a sense. Not really.

I mean, you know, Lawrence Ocoli, who I think Anthony Joshua sort of funded a lot of his early life in Korea. He did, yeah. You know, and really looked after him and, you know,

it's nice to see him popping up in the Jake Paul camp for a bit of clout. Unfortunately, it's the game that we're in. But, you know... There's no loyalty in this business. I do know that. I think the word is,

is that Jake's... He can look after himself. Yeah. You know, these guys aren't going in there and blowing him out in one round. But they're much better than him. I mean, that's the reality. Yeah, of course.

You're talking about all. All of those guys are top 15 heavyweights in the world. So I don't expect Jake Ball to be getting the better of them in sparring. Do you know what it is? It's really making yourself war ready. Yeah. Like you've taken those shots around the side of the head, getting hit on the arms and body,

to just understand what you're going to be in with. But like I say, you know, look, a Koli, those guys can punch. They can't punch like Anthony Joshua. No. But with 16 ounce gloves on, it is a little bit of a different kettle of fish with head guards on. And, you know, but you can't, you know, this is not, a guy that's dragged off the street

who's never been hit before by a big man. This is a guy who spars regularly who's having proper training camps. He's just not as good as Anthony Joshua. That's what I believe. Now when I spoke to you three weeks ago in Saudi Ed, I think we both were still sort of wondering why he'd taking it.

Well, I'm still trying to work out why Jake Paul's taking it. They've talked about, you know, they feel that AJ's come to the end and he's a bit gun shy and he's a bit battle-weary and he's he's been hurt, he's been dropped and his heart's not,

they're coming up with all of those, all of the sort of stuff we've heard for years and years about age yeah, but I still haven't had, you know, I still haven't had anything solid from them that tells me why they've taken.

Are you any closer to understand why they're taking it? I think the biggest reason is they think they can win. He thinks he can win. And he got a point out of that. He posted a clip yesterday, he was like one of the things he does online

which is very good and clever, which is like, this is my day of training. And I was actually looking at the training, thinking he works really hard. He's got all the top people around him. His strength and condition, his nutrition, his nutrition, his chef, his hyperbaric chambers, his recovery.

And I was thinking, you know what, fair play. And I think once you start living that life and you've got people around you, he thinks he will have people around him saying Anthony Joshua is done. He's inactive, he's out of confidence, his chin's no good anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, so this is the right.

To be honest with you, this is the best time to fight AJ. Yeah, yeah. Good boy. He's been out for a year and a half. He is, you know, coming to the back end of his career. Maybe there are some tough loss last time. Yeah, exactly. So, but all these things you can always talk yourself into, you know, and I think,

you saw Roy Jones Jr. come out. I, you know, I give him a great chance in his fight. Teddy Atlas, don't rule out Jake Paul. It's like, oh my God, what, have I got something wrong here? And, you know, listen, maybe, maybe, I think the narrative of if A. Jay doesn't flatten him in one round, it's a disgrace. It's quite harsh. But certainly we don't want to be going three, four rounds,

you know, looking like... And being in clinches after five rights. Yeah, yeah. Because we want to... Like Tyson Fury against Francine Garland? Yeah, basically, because we want to come out of this fight with everything that we went into the fight for. Which is great profile, you know, job done,

respect for boxing, massive 2026, load of money. Now, before we talk about what we're going to talk about here, Is there still a plan for AJ to fight in that February, March window? That was the sort of Saudi window that we've talked about three or four months ago. We're in talks, deep talks with Turk Alashake. For the plan would be to fight in February. And then hopefully, subject to His Excellency getting it done, fighting Tyson Fury around September.

Is that getting any closer to Tyson Fury? I mean, you know, Spencer Brown talked about. I leave it to them. I don't get involved. His excellency has a great track record in making the fights that he wants to make. He knows this is the biggest fight in boxing. but anything can happen. You know, like for us, we're due to fight in February.

AJ could damage his knuckle, knocking Jake Paul clean out. I mean, you know, it's quite a fast turnaround. So we want our plan right now is to fight Jake Paul, fight in February, fight in September. And that would be the February fight against a top 15 guy or whoever, and then Tyson Fury. That makes all the sense to the world. Listen, one of the things that you and I have talked about

before AJ fights, maybe 15 times. We've talked after AJ fights, maybe even more. But we've never actually talked bizarrely, and I'll think about this, about AJA, but when you first saw him back in whenever it was,

2011, 20, 20, 20, 12. So I'm just going to read you something now, and you're probably going to guess what it is. 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1,000, 1. 1, 1,000, 1,000, 1,000, the round, 1,000, yeah, yeah.

It's bad, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, 1, 2, R, those were some night. So, so when, when did you first? to bump into AD? When do you shut up on any radars? The first time I ever heard the name was when I was in the office

and I got an email, sorry, a letter, actually, as how long ago it was, it was a letter from a lawyer. And it said, I represent a young man called Anthony Joshua. And he's a very talented boxer, but he's got himself in trouble. Okay.

And he's going to court. And there's a very good chance he could go to prison. It's 2010 or early 2011? Yeah, about 2010, maybe 2011, actually. Like February, Yeah, and would you, we think he has a lot of potential, and we think if he keeps going, he'll get on the England team,

would you come to court and testify for him and let the court know how much potential he has and the impact that he could have on boxing? And I thought, number one, are you having a laugh? I mean, firstly, I don't even know who this bloke is, you're asking me to come to court. And what they wanted me to do was kind of say, if this guy is the real deal,

if, what, you know, what the opportunities that could be presented to him and I just sort of, I didn't rip it up, but I just put it on the old, you know,

seen and dismissed pile. Give it the young Frank, give it a young Frank in the corner of the office. Frank, look after that for an hour. Fast forward to the world championships in 2011. 2011,

Azerbaijan, Baku. And all of a sudden, I'm seeing this guy ringwalk and it's Anthony Joshua. And he's in the final. And I'm thinking, Frank, where's that letter?

I'm thinking, oh my God, this is the bloke they wrote the letter about. you know so he got robbed in the final I mean he should have won gold yeah yeah against the Azeri in front of the president

yeah of course yeah yeah and then I went up to Sheffield and then just you know went to see Carl Frotch and Rob McCracken I could just hear this noise in the background it was the heavy bag creaking him turn round and it was him and I just said to Robert

that's Joshua is it he's going yeah he's serious and then obviously he went and won Olympic gold which was kind of like I mean it was amazing but it was bad news for us because it just meant, this was at a time where we had complete lock

on all the young fighters coming through and it was like, AJ was always going to sign with us. But when he won Olympic gold, everything changed and everyone got their checkbook out, every global promoter. And promises. Started throwing money at him. And then it became a real tough race.

Yeah. It was a tough race at that time. Because he was out, he didn't fight for a long, long time. That's the other thing. He didn't come to see me until probably about three months after he won gold. So it was still in 2012, but it was later in the summer. Yeah.

And then I said to him, because I knew I could see he was a really deep thinker. Yeah. And not that he didn't trust me, but he definitely, you know, he was definitely curious about. Cautious. He said to me one day, you better not be like Don King. I said, well, that's great. I said, I mean, he's not got the best track record. And he did do time in prison for murder.

Other than that. Other than that, you know, I don't like to think we're too similar. So he, and then I said to him, why don't you go? away and meet everybody go, you know, and explore and learn. And anyway, I didn't know that would take another three or four months, which it did, and then

eventually he came back, he said, I've met everyone I want to sign me in. So that's 2013 now? Yeah. And at that, can you remember sitting down with him then? Was he only, without prying too much, obviously there was secret people like, did he come and see you on his owner? Was it just like this? With Rob McCracken. Yeah, with Macracken, so just a tour of them in front of him. Yeah, and I think

maybe one time with some members of the family and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. He was, he's very intelligent, and he's a sponge for knowledge. Real sponge. And he loves to talk, you know. There was once, I remember, it was actually the day before the, I think it was the Pavec Him fight at Wembley. And I woke up and I saw her in the paper, I think it was the son or the mirror, wherever it was, AJ in talks with Dana White

to sign with Dana White. And I'm like, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? Like, I mean, I can't believe he's doing this to me. And then he only had one fight with us at the time left on his contract, but I just presumed like this guy is going to be with us forever. Like, we're, you know. So I sat down with him.

I said, listen, mate, be straight with me. Like, what's going on? He said, no, Dana White phoned me. He told me that he wants to sign me. I said, I'm with Eddie Hearn. I'll never leave him. But tell me all about your business. And he had an hour on the phone with Dana White.

And I'm like, and then later on, Dana White actually told me, you know, I spoke to Anthony Joshua. I approached him. And the first thing he said to me is, I'll never leave Eddie. And I thought, but he still asked him to tell him about his business. Yeah, yeah, because he wants, this is interesting, you know. So the loyalty from AJ over the years, I mean, he signed three contracts with us, three extensions, and a lifelong contract with us.

like three years ago. And he's a part of the business now as well, you know, and we're very close. And, you know, he's a top, top guy. And as we were going through, you know, those ones and twos and threes, before we get to Dillian White, Dillian White's the first fight where it becomes personal.

It's the first fight where he gets caught and he gets a bit sucked in. Yeah, yeah. Were you worried? Was it, I mean, it's a great night. It was a phenomenal fight. And I think, actually, I think Aja doesn't get their respect for what he did, that run he goes on, Dillian White,

and then on his, but did you see a different thing in that fight? Did it slightly worry? that he could get sucked in. Firstly, it was the first real fight he had. He was a bit of dealing with a handful. He was dangerous. Beating him as an amateur. Exactly.

And it was like every press conference we did, every workout we did, those two were going at it. And it drains you. It really sucks you in. And it was the first time we'd done that of anybody. And on the night, he paid the price for that

because he unloaded with everything in the kitchen sink. They were fighting after the bell. They were fighting at the way. There was a ring invasion for Walter. And then after three rounds, his tank was completely empty. He got hit with a massive left hook. And people talk about Anthony Joshua's chin.

That left hook from Dillian Wyatt would have certainly dropped 99.9% of heavyweight. I mean, it was whilst trading and it was a flush clean left hook, as was the right hand that dropped AJ at Wembley. I mean, that was a shot that most women would have ever get off from. I maintain he was out, he woke up when he hit the floor. I maintained that, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, but that fight, taught him a lot.

You know, it was a real situation where he had to come through that moment and he found a second win. And that was a big win, big win that night. Now, we all know that Tyson Fue was stripped of the IABF belt the morning after he beat Vlad out in Duttleau. He was literally down there. He was blisters on his feet because he'd worn terrible cheap socks

in his boots and Mick Hennesse is on the phone screaming because he was stripped during that morning. And I think so, 48 days later, Glastcoff fights Charles Martin. because Glasgow's meant to win, Charles Martin wins. How soon after Charles Martin wins do you say this is it? Even though Charles Martin's a banger and he's unbeaten, and he's a dangerous heavy way,

how soon did you jump in there and make that make a dream? That will go down as one of the best bits of business that we've ever done. To be honest, I had a deal with Glasgow. Because he was going to win. So I spoke to Kathy Dover going into that fight, and he was fighting for the vacant World Heavyweight time. I expected him to win. Yeah, so did they?

We had a deal in place for Glasgow to fight Anthony Joshua as a first defence. And all of a sudden, in the second round, Glasgow goes over, dislocates his knee, and Charles Martin wins. And I'm like, I can't believe it. We literally had AJ fighting for the World Heavyweight title. Now, we fancied the Glasgow fight because of the style. Now we've got this six-foot-six southpour puncher in Charles Martin.

About 22 knockouts, something ridiculous. And not a lot of people know about him. So I thought, we'll just move on. Look, we just sold out the O2. We'll get a World Heavyweight title shot later. We're not in a rush. And then our Hayman's team phones me up and says, oh, I hear you had a deal with Glasgow.

And I said, yeah, I do. He said, well, do you want to fight Charles Martin? I said, yeah, no problem. I said, this is the deal we had in place. Let me know if you're interested. We ended up paying three times more for Martin and Jeff for Glasgow. And it was the best bit of business that we ever did.

And at the time, I remember saying to my old man, you know, I said, we're going to bring this guy over for AJ. And he said, how much you're giving him? I told him, he said, what you watch? I said, listen, this will be the best bit of business that we've ever done. And, you know, after that fight, this is a bit of privileged information, but I'll tell you anyway. Thank you. After that fight, you know how it works with options, John Buncie.

When someone has, gives you a shot of the title, generally the promoter will be involved in moving forward of the new fighter or you'd get a rematch clause or something. But we just had financials. So for the first two defenses after that, we had to pay Charles Martin's team a chunk of money. But it didn't matter. And at the time, I'm trying to explain this to AJ, and he thinks I'm mad. Right?

How much? What? He gets to that when I defend my world title. I said, yeah, trust me on this one. This is going to work. The difficult decision on that was is that Charles Martin was a dangerous fight. And Rob McCracken.

But it wasn't just that that was a dangerous fight. It was, are we ready to become world heavyweight champion? All we've done so far is beat Dillian White. Yeah. So it's one thing beating Charles Martin. That's why I read out of 1-1-1-2-2-3. But it's one thing beating Charles Martin.

But when you become World Heavyweight Champion, it's the defences. It's the pressure for unification. And it's too early. So that was a big dilemma. And Rob McCracken's always very, very careful with his matchmaking. And AJ, I said to AJ, we got this fight. He's like, I'm in, but you need to speak to a lot.

Rob. So I'm speaking to Rob and Rob's like, well, it's not that we can't beat him, but I don't I want AJ necessarily to be World Everywhere champion yet. We need to build, blah, blah, blah. I said, Rob, listen to me, can you beat Charles Martin? He said, listen, it's not an easy fight, but yes, I believe we can. I said, you've got to take this fight, mate. And anyway, we all agreed to take the fight. He knocked him out in two rounds and then on we went. The rest, as they say, it's history. Let's have a little pit stop at the Vlad fight because suddenly we just changed the face of British boxing we got at Wembley it's not 28,000

302,000 it's through the roof on numbers it's through the roof on fight and I mean we knew we had a star before then but suddenly after Wembley it was it just went to a different level but just became different yeah I mean it was already you know we off the back of the Charles Martin fight

we fought Brazil at the O2 then we fought Melina in Manchester Brazil by the way was tough yeah it was unbeaten as well big old luck Melina was the easy one yeah but Brazil at the time was a decent fighter I agree, I agree. So we dealt with that, and then all of a sudden,

Clitchco opportunity comes around. And that, again, was one of those decisions with Rob McCracken that was like, you know, I said, Rob, timing, you know, maybe Clitchco's not the fighter he was. He went, Ed, I mean, you're just judging this off one fight with Fury where Fury ran around and just frustrated him and outbox him. This is still Vladimir and Clitchco.

I mean, he's still a brilliant fighter. And we are still a novice. Yeah. So same thing, Rob, can we beat Vladimir Klitschko? Well, yeah, we can, but that's it, to stop. And that was a, people, because he wins, if he gets beat there, if he don't come through the sixth round, everyone goes, you're an idiot for taking that fight.

Of course. Right? But because he won it, everyone goes, oh, well, Vlad was old. I mean, that fight was such a tough, dangerous fight for someone with that experience. And then we now know that AJ tells Robin the corner, I'm going to take a round off. Don't worry, I'm going to relax. And Rob's, of course, panicking because he can't believe it, but he does.

So after he's hurt, he takes a break. He was winning the fight. He dropped him in the fifth. We look like we've won the fight. Vladimir comes back with a minute to go in the fifth and batters AJ. And he goes back to the store. I mean, the emotions of that fifth round, we're on the verge of victory, and then we're on the verge of getting beat. AJ goes back to the store.

He looks exhausted. Yeah, he does, yeah. Comes out for the sixth round. legs are all over the place, gets hit by the biggest right hand you've ever seen that would have, again, I don't believe

heavy weights would have got up from that shot. Goes down, looks out, gets to his feet, hangs on. The seventh, eighth, ninth. I mean, he's just getting his feet back. Vlad's winning rounds again.

The fights, you know, AJ's still up, but only just. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the 11th, he comes out and, you know, it was just... You can't invent a lot of it. You could never... And then from there,

from that Clitchcoe victory, everything changed again, because after that, we went to Wales to the Millennium Stadium to fight Kubrat Pulev. Yeah. Which ended up being Carlos Taka. And we sold out the Millennium Stadium

for Carlos Taka. Then he fought Joseph Parker at the same venue, sold it out again. I mean... So you knew and a lot of us in the trade knew just how popular he was and the old kind of concept of an event fighter, but that's what...

The two fights of the Principality or the Municipality... They were like events. They were like absolute 100% events. He could have had no one in the opposite corner. I mean, we went from Pulev to Tackham. Parker admittedly had great, but Tuckham and Pooleva still did an incredible business. Amazing.

And then from there, back to Wembley to fight Pavecch. Which was a savage fighting around. 80,000, you know, and he was a bit off that night, but that was a good win. I mean, that's an underrated win as well. This wasn't pervassing a Dillion Whitefall. Massively underrated. This was years before.

And, you know, then obviously the horrible night of Madison Square Garden. Yeah, the horrible night at Madison Square Garden, where we all got it wrong. I mean, but I think leading into that fight, when we sit back, there were a whole series

of little incidents that lead to a perfect storm that we knew, you know, the stye on the eye, the yawning, to being exhausted, all the things.

When were you most worried about that? You know, I was worried because he kept it to himself. You know, it was like, you know,

the Jarrell Miller fight falling through was a disaster and obviously you've been training for eight weeks for a stall. Yeah, then Andy Ruiz is the new opponent

which was, I'd say it's a bad choice, but if I would have known about his physical staff, and all that kind of stuff. I wouldn't have gone with a reason. I would have actually pulled him out of the fight. But they kept it under wraps in camp.

And listen, it weren't like they weren't okay. But it was only really after the fight when he did all his tests. You know, going into that pevettekin fight, he was tired a lot. And on the way to the venue that night, he was in the car. He was actually ill.

Not with, you know, the low iron and stuff like that, but just with, he had the flute. And he was in the car. and he had all jackets on and he was shivering in the back. I'd heard that story. And it was like, he turned up and everyone's going, oh my God, you're fighting Alexander Poveckin. I think you got the flu.

Anyway, wins that fight, but then goes into the Miller fire. And I didn't know, but all camp, he was just exhausted. And then on the night, you know, he just felt exhausted, like all week, just completely exhausted. And then he went after, you know, he went to the doctor after, and he did all this blood test.

And they said, like, you know, you've got some issues. and your iron levels are that of, like, how you even do a day of training, we don't know. And that was good for him because it was like, okay, now I know, not why I lost, but why I was feeling like that, you know. So that was, you know, good to get that sorted. And then the Ruiz rematch probably goes down

as one of the most important fights of all time. And the way that he boxed was incredible. And people say, oh, Ruiz weren't in shape. So what? Ruiz was Ruiz. Any Ruiz. It's always dangerous. It doesn't matter whether he's 19 stone or 18,

or 18 stone, he's always dangerous, and he just got his head boxed off in a brilliant performance. It was a brilliant performance, and it was great to be in Saudi, and it was out, and it was night time, and it was again bad rain. So what we've been on here is this incredible, not roller coaster at a moment, we've had a down, but it's just popularity. And one of the things that I think always gets overlooking with AJ,

is the amount of pressure he's been under. No British fighter in history has ever been put under the same amount of pressure as AJ. Has he dealt with it differently? I mean, the defeat probably helped in some ways. Took a bit of pressure off his shoulders. Maybe. Maybe. But maybe put more pressure on his shoulders to win.

But then you realise that actually everyone's quite fickle. And you're like, you know, you're the hero, you're the British hero. And you get beat and you're just useless. Yeah. No heart. And you're a joke. Yeah. No heart.

No guards. No spine. And it's like, and then after a while you actually have to realize that it's always nice to receive positive comments. Yeah. Unfortunately, you can't dine out on them. can't worry about when that changes because it's going to change. At some point, people are envious. People have their own issues.

People don't want to see people succeed. People are entitled to their own opinion. And you're never going to read. There's always going to be negativity out there. And I think it takes you a bit of time just to go, do you know what? I'm just doing it. I'm doing it for me anyway.

To develop that stick of skin. You know, for a long, long time, all he was concerned about was doing the right thing, you know, for the British public. for, you know, not letting anybody down, for being a great ambassador, for inspiring kids, and they're all things that still matter to him. But you're never going to conquer that.

So you just have to do your own thing. Try and find happiness, and he finds happiness in his boxing. You know, and that's why when he gets beat. But the problem with that is, when he gets beat, the world comes crashing down. And you'll never know how low he is because of the type of man he is.

And he's also the kind of guy. There's a lot of discussion right now about, you know, make sure you talk to people and, you know, when you feel down and all this kind of stuff and people talk about mental health and particularly... It's okay not to be okay. Yeah, Ricky Hatt and all this kind of thing. Unfortunately, AJ's one of those guys. He wouldn't share. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, of course.

He's a brave face guy who believes my problems are my problems, right? Yeah. They're not anybody else's problems. And I'm going to deal with them. And, you know, unfortunately, that's probably not what the rule books has. He got better with sharing. No, he doesn't share. I mean, he's never shared with me in that respect of how, you know, I will have conversations with me.

A, feeling, mate, all right. But I know what, yeah, my, great. Listen, we're back, we're grinding. Yeah, yeah. And I know, like, you know, the Ruiz fight was one thing. The Ucic fight, you saw that capitulation, Ucic 2. You saw it in the ring and you saw it in the press conference. Right in front of us.

Right, yeah, I was there. That was the guard. That was, you know, the press conference where he broke down in tears, that was, everyone was like, well, it was a breakdown, it was basically a breakdown. But that's just the reality of what's happening behind the mask, you know? Yeah. And I know I could sit down with Asia, even as close as I am with him and say, mate, are you, like, how are you feeling? Great.

And you're not going to get it. Yeah, I'm not going to get, to be honest with, mate, I feel really low. I'm not, I'm never going to get that because he's the type of guy, and this is probably synonymous with a lot of men. Yeah. Who says, no, no, no. I've got, listen, it's tough and I feel like, you know, S-H-I-T but I'm going to get on with it, mate,

and that's what I do. And, you know, sometimes that doesn't help. And I think the Dubois defeat just probably took a little bit longer. Was that a bigger hole we fell into it? It was because of the injury as well and he couldn't get back to training and then it and then obviously that defeat was tough to take.

It was against a Brit, it was at Wembley. You know, it was a tough, tough night's work. It was a bad knockout. In a fight that he was about, possibly about to turn. I think so. I think so. But he didn't. You know, and he trained hard for that fight, and he expected himself to win.

So, you know, he's got high expectations of himself, but he works so hard to perform. And when he doesn't perform, mentally, he's very tougher. It's been some journey, I don't it? Unbelievable. And this week's over. I mean, this is just another, like, crazy experience. And, you know, I never expected this to happen, but we are very focused on him. trying to become world heavyweight champion.

And we're focused on infighting Tyson Fury. So this is a nice little detour for a bit of, it's never fun because it's not a game. It's a real fight. But get this done and then resume 2026. If we could get back that World Heavyweight Championship, it would just be the perfect story. But listen, if we can beat Tyson Fury,

that'll also be a lovely end. You know, that's a lovely end. That's the only right to end. Well, we started off talking about how this ridiculous fight was made and we were talking about a mad fight that we've been waiting for since June the 10th, 2020, 615 at night, not that I'm a pedant, and we'll do stats like that. Eddie, it's been a pleasure and a delight talking to you. I've been Steve Bunce, very special additions this week, Miami all week long.

The fight on Friday night, Jake Paul, yes, Jake Paul, against, I still have to think about it against Anthony Joshua. Hey, listen, it's live on Netflix. Oh, what a time. Anyway, this has been five live boxing. Thank you for listening. My name's Steve Bradnell, assistant manager of Royal Oak FC. You may have seen me online with Vinyl.

Vinyl sensation. And now the BBC have given me the chance to set the footballing world banter rights. This could be a great opportunity for us, lads, a podcast for the BBC. Can I just say, what's the podcast? Brilliant. Great start.

Well done, Bob. Brilliant. We can completely show utter transparency to Royal Oak fans. I'll use my charm, gift at gab. Games God. The Steve Bracknell podcast. Watch on YouTube.

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