Press conferences typically aren’t open to the public, but this one was. The Jake Paul v. Anthony Joshua Press Conference was held at The Fillmore Miami Beach. It was definitely a cool experience to sit in the audience. And I enjoyed speaking with other spectators about how they thought the fight might go.

I’ve learned that if I’m going to see an Anthony Joshua fight in-person, fly in a few days early to attend the fight week events. (Even if I’m not attending the fight, I still try to watch the fight week events.) This is a good way to get excited about the fight. 

To then see the fighters come on stage? In this case, both the undercard and the main card fighters were on stage at the same time. This led to some pretty interesting exchanges. The same typical stuff from the first press conference with Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua when the fight was announced. The questions were still geared towards the concerns that people had regarding the fight. 

The second boxer I was really excited to see was Caroline DuBois, who is currently my favorite female boxer. I knew a little bit about Alycia Baumgardner, but not much. I really just became aware of her from her exchange with Claressa Shields a while back. But I did think it was pretty interesting to see the exchange between DuBois and Baumgardner. I am very curious to see if that fight ends up happening. I think with both of them being good boxers, that could be another exciting matchup. 

This is part of why I like to watch the fight week events and the undercard fights. It sets the stage for fights that might be coming in the future. It’s a great opportunity to see up-and-coming boxers who are early in their career or not currently headliners. These pre-fight events get me amped up for the current fight and fights that might come in the future. 

I want to pause here to say that in the time since the fight, unfortunately, Sina and Latz, two of Anthony Joshua’s friends and trainers, have passed away. To be clear, I didn’t know them on a deep personal level as I’d only met them in passing at fight-week events.

I met Sina at this press conference. He was nice enough to take a few minutes to snap a photo with me. We had a very brief exchange where I asked him for the photo. He responded, “Why would you want to take a photo with me? I’m a nobody.” I responded that I knew him from following Anthony Joshua on social media. This was basically also the start of the conversation that I had when I met Latz last year at the weigh-in for the DuBois fight. 

Both of them were very kind, nice, down-to-earth people. This was a great event with positive vibes. And to then hear that they passed away less than two weeks later was very, very jarring and very upsetting. I can only imagine for their friends, family members, and loved ones who knew and interacted with them daily, what a shock and how devastating this was. So I just wanted to pause here to sincerely offer my condolences to the family and friends of both Sina and Latz. I also want to wish Anthony Joshua a speedy recovery. 

With the press conference done, I was able to sit and reflect on how cool it was to see it live. To top the experience off, Roy Jones Jr. was also kind enough to stop and take a photo with me on his way out.