Ex-NHL enforcer with 1126-penalty minutes reacts as Anthony Joshua KO's Jake Paul after six-round bout

Former two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua stopped Jake Paul with a knockout at 1:31 of the sixth round on Friday night ending their eight-round heavyweight bout in decisive fashion.

Joshua originally turned the fight in his favor in the fifth round dropping Paul twice with clean right hands and body shots. Paul managed to survive the round but the end came early in the sixth when another right hand sent him down and forced the referee to stop the contest.

Reaction followed quickly across the sports world including from former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque.

“This fight should have been over in first round!” Laraque wrote on X.

Laraque played 13 seasons in the NHL and finished his career with 1,126 penalty minutes. His comment shared a common fan sentiment that Joshua could have ended the fight much sooner.

After the bout, Joshua improved his record to 29-4 with 26 knockouts while Paul dropped to 12-2 suffering the first knockout loss of his professional boxing career. Paul later confirmed he had sustained a broken jaw during the fight.

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Georges Laraque unimpressed with NHL's current state of physicality

Earlier last winter, Georges Laraque revisited a topic he knows better than almost anyone, the role of toughness in hockey. During an appearance on the Hello Hockey podcast with Tom Gazzola and Shawn Belle, he shared his disappointment with the current state of physicality in the league.

Widely regarded as one of the best enforcers of his era, Laraque made it clear that even as fighting declines in the modern NHL the game’s “code” remains firmly in place.

“It doesn’t matter that there’s less fighting right now than there used to be,” Laraque said. “There’s always going to be a code in the NHL.”

Laraque acknowledged the reduction in traditional enforcer roles but also mentioned that physical accountability hasn’t disappeared.

“Now, every time there's a body check, even if it's clean, someone’s dropping the gloves and it’s okay because you're backing up your teammates… and there’s almost no tough guys left now in the NHL. There’s maybe five heavyweights.”

Even with the pure heavyweight roles fading, Laraque pointed to rising fan favorites like Matt Rempe and Arber Xhekaj as proof the appetite for toughness hasn’t vanished. He also singled out star players stepping in when needed and applauded examples like Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov defending Victor Hedman.

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Edited by Anjum Rajonno