Why Nakisa Bidarian agreed to Jake Paul’s Anthony Joshua fight

Jake Paul is just one fight removed from battling 57-year-old Mike Tyson and is now going up against an Olympic gold medal-winning boxer in his prime.

Most Valuable Promotion’s CEO Nakisa Bidarian, responsible for leading the promotion of Paul’s boxing career, said that discussions started in March regarding a match with Anthony Joshua (18-4).

“He started thinking about this in March, that he wanted to fight Joshua. I was always pushing him to do it later,” Bidarian told The Post. “Really, AJ has been on the sidelines for 14-plus months.

“So if Jake’s going to do it, this is probably a good time to do it.”

Paul, a +700 underdog in the bout after being favored in all but one of his previous fights, has an uphill battle against Joshua.

“I think there’s the potential that Jake Paul knocks out Anthony Joshua,” Bidarian said. “I don’t think it’s about expecting him to hang. Now, do I think there’s a chance Anthony Joshua knocks out Jake Paul? I’d be lying if I said no. Of course there is. There’s a chance Jake Paul gets knocked out in any fight. Yeah, if Anthony Joshua gets Jake in a corner and lands cleanly five, six, seven shots in a row, or maybe even one super powerful shot of course Jake can go down. 24 men have gone down against Anthony Joshua. That’s something you have to go in anticipating that it could happen. But do I think Jake can go eight rounds with Joshua? Of course.”

Jake Paul next faces Anthony Joshua. Getty Images for Netflix

Bidarian joked that he thought Paul was crazy for fighting former NBA player Nate Robinson, but when he “detonated him,” he began to believe in his boxing prowess.

“When he got in the ring – and this is going to sound crazy – with Nate Robinson, we were all just like ‘What is this kid doing?'” Biadrian said. “Ben Askren, I felt good about. Tyron Woodley was the other really scary one because now he’s suddenly fighting a former UFC champion.”

Win or lose on Dec. 19, Bidarian said that Paul will remain heavily involved in the fighting world.

There has been some speculation that he could fight the unified heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandar Usyk in an MMA match, which would likely need to happen in the PFL MMA league.