Shaquille O’Neal Drops Verdict On Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua After Round 6 KO

Suffice to say Big Diesel didn’t get the fight he wanted. The top-billed matchup between Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua finally went down in Shaq’s old ‘home.’ With all the anticipation and hype that went into it, the flow was… something. Shaquille O’Neal was one of the dissatisfied ones.

Almost as anticlimactic as his win against Mike Tyson, Jake Paul’s fight with Anthony Joshua leaned heavily one way. Former unified heavyweight champion Joshua took Paul down in a TKO. That’s the second loss of Paul’s career, and first by KO.

This matchup was in the Kaseya Center, home of the Miami Heat and where Shaq played. He wasn’t back in his old arena but it doesn’t mean he missed it. He obviously caught it live and was quick to react after that TKO.

“Yeah anthony joshua #what script,” the big guy tweeted. Okay, so the longtime combat sports diehard loves a little more back and forth in his fights. This is a guy who found out about the fake storylines in WWE in his adulthood and it devastated him as much as finding out Santa isn’t real. He takes this stuff very seriously.

Yeah anthony joshua #what script

— SHAQ (@SHAQ) December 20, 2025

So he’s not the only one throwing the ‘scripted’ accusation around. We know how Jake Paul feels about that word. Only a couple of days ago he threatened to sue Deontay Wilder for calling his fight with Joshua scripted.

But Paul and Shaq have the most unlikely friendship. So maybe Shaq gets to say what we are all thinking.

Shaq has a lot of opinions on Jake Paul’s fights

For the most part, Shaq’s little tweet amused all those who were left sour from the fight’s outcome. Among the laughing emojis and ‘LOLs,’ he got a lot of agreement. Fans either claimed that Joshua dragged their fight to rack up the money or were emboldened to question why AJ dragged his impending victory that long.

A few were even wondering why Joshua was borderline ‘nice’ at times if he could knock the daylights out of Paul so easily. But on the other hand, fans give props to Shaq’s friend who stepping into a fight with a size and experience disadvantage.

O’Neal however loves a very intense competition whether it’s on the court or in the ring. He was ringside when Paul took on Mike Tyson a year ago. He was there for his idol of course.

And when he saw Iron Mike go down easily, Shaq claimed, “I got robbed.” Several accusations and conspiracy theories about that quasi-ceremonial non-event being scripted were circulated while Shaquille O’Neal outright dismissed it as a real fight.

“If Jake Paul really beats a 58-year-old Mike Tyson, is that something to be happy about? That’s like me right now, or when I was playing, playing against a 70-year-old Wilt Chamberlain and bragging ‘I’m the most dominant!’, but I wouldn’t have felt good about that,” he said last year.

Despite his ill feelings about the fight, Shaq was chummy with Paul and gave him props. Hopefully Paul reflects on that before he considers suing Shaq for tonight’s tweet.

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