Anthony Joshua has found clarity.
That's no mean feat in the often confusing, increasingly complicated world of professional boxing — a world that feels more muddled now than ever.
Anthony Joshua, the two-time unified heavyweight world champion. Jake Paul fighting on streaming giant Netflix.
Separately, those two sentences make perfect sense. Together, they read like a fever dream — a collision of realities that not even the most ardent fan of boxing as entertainment should be expected to accept.
Yet, the following statement is as factual and real as the millions of dollars that will change hands this coming weekend in Miami — Joshua is fighting Paul on Saturday, November 20 (AEDT), televised on streaming giant Netflix.
For purists, it's as far away from what the sport needs as possible.
For Joshua, apparently, it delivers clarity.
"You know, my mind is back to being focused on boxing," Joshua tells ABC Sport Daily podcast from Miami.
"And I understand what I have to do.
"I understand what's gonna happen, and my mind's clear.
"I watched the [British welterweight title] fight with Pat McCormack [and Conah Walker, who won by 12th round knock out] recently on this show in Monaco, and the guy said, 'It doesn't matter how fit you are, if your mind's not clear, you can't perform.'
"I'm looking forward to performing, because my mind's clear again."
Clarity of thought is perhaps what Joshua has needed of late.
Out of the ring since September 2024's devastating defeat to Daniel Dubois at Wembley, Joshua's mind has no doubt been clouded by a myriad of thoughts.
Falling to a professional record of 28-4, the giant 36-year-old Olympic champion must have considered retirement.
Following three defeats in five fights between 2019 and 2022, Joshua had built himself back into a contender with four straightforward wins before his crushing collapse against Dubois as he attempted to regain his IBF strap.
A mooted fight against Tyson Fury is yet to materialise — not that we should be surprised. That all-British blockbuster has been on the cards for almost five years now.
Instead, Joshua will take on this darkly comedic farce against Paul.
Paul should be worried.
Joshua does not play around. The last time he fought a novice boxer — and it's perhaps charitable to call Paul even that, given the calibre of his prior opponents — was against MMA legend Francis Ngannou.
Ngannou, who has an 18-3 record in MMA with 13KOs, was knocked down by a crushing Joshua right and then — after being given time to recover — was folded in half by another right that left the French-Cameroonian crumpled on the Riyadh canvas.
Paul is 8cm shorter and will weigh as much as 25kg less than Ngannou on fight night.
Sure, it is undeniable that Paul has the name of the great Mike Tyson on his resume, "a smart move" according to Joshua, that proved Paul and his team were "a little bit crazy" but also have unshakable belief.
But as anyone who saw that sham contest will know, Tyson's name may as well be written in crayon for all it's worth as a legitimate scalp, especially compared to a fighter like Joshua, who is far closer to his prime than the then-58-year-old faded former champion.
And even though Joshua has somewhat hamstrung himself to a 111kg limit in the fight agreement, that crushing power will carry through.
Joshua is pensive when asked whether he is concerned about doing serious damage to the American, a long pause as he ponders the correct way to answer.
"A balance. Unbalanced," he mutters, almost absent-mindedly, a half-forgotten vestige of restraint that circumstance and the pain of defeat have all but smothered within him, the golden boy of British boxing surrendering to the darkness he has readily admitted rests uneasily within him.
"Of course you don't wanna kill the guy," he eventually poses.
"But you wanna kill the guy.
"That's where the balance comes into it.
"It is a blood sport. But you want them to go home to their family."
There's no question that anything other than a knockout victory will do for Joshua.
But boxing has a funny way of crushing the egos of the unwary.
"You know, you can actually get caught up in the hype and start feeling like, 'Yeah, I'm gonna definitely win this and take it easy,'" Joshua said.
"But I understand the risks and rewards of this game.
"I'm not so much focused on the rewards. I'll focus on the risk. I'm preparing properly, and I gotta care about myself more than anyone else does.
"I really need to give him the respect, give myself the respect, and showcase my talent and my skills because there's a lot of expectations on my shoulders, being the favourite."
Despite the calibre of his opponent, the vagaries of sport mean that taking the fight carries as much risk as declining it.
Regardless, Joshua has repeatedly said that this is a "great opportunity" for him.
This from a man who won Olympic gold on home soil at London 2012; who has fought at Britain's boxing mecca, Wembley Stadium, four times; the Millennium Stadium twice; the O2 Arena nine times; and even once at New York's hallowed Madison Square Garden; a man who has contested world titles on 13 separate occasions.
And yet this is what he calls a "great opportunity?"
"I wanna be in big fights and get big rewards," Joshua explains.
"God willing, I beat Jake Paul [and] when I go into my next fight that's gonna be a professional boxer that's had a good amateur record, it's gonna be a massive fight again because [of] this opportunity with Jake.
"So this is a big reward. And then the next flight is gonna be big risks. So we're just balancing out the scales."
You can follow all the action from Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua in ABC Sport's live blog from Saturday, December 20.
