Jake Paul breaks his silence on ex-rival Anthony Joshua’s shock car crash in Nigeria… just days after their fight

Jake Paul insists that he’s ‘praying’ for former rival Anthony Joshua after the heavyweight boxer’s horror car crash. 

On Monday morning, the British star, 36, was injured in a crash that killed two other passengers in Nigeria, before being ‘rescued alive’ and taken to a local hospital.

Paul and Joshua shared the ring just 10 days prior, in a blockbuster Netflix bout which saw the influencer-turned-boxer suffer a knockout defeat in the sixth round. 

There appeared to be no bad blood between the two camps after the fight and Paul showed that again as he spoke on Joshua’s car crash, just hours after it happened. 

Taking to X, he wrote: ‘Life is much more important than boxing. I am praying for the lost lives, AJ and anyone impacted by today’s unfortunate accident’.

Former heavyweight champion Joshua was in a Lexus SUV when it smashed into a stationary truck shortly after 11am Monday on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

Images of the SUV’s crumpled wreckage were released by Nigerian officials, while a Mitsubishi believed to be part of Joshua’s convoy sat undamaged just yards away.

The entire front of the vehicle is destroyed, with the car’s doors ripped out and the roof smashed out of place. 

Footage posted online earlier show the former heavyweight world champion shirtless and looking dazed as he sat in the wrecked vehicle among shattered glass. 

But while two of the five people involved in the collision died, Joshua miraculously cheated death and was later seen in the front seat of an emergency vehicle speaking to officials. 

Five men were involved in the collision in total, Nigerian road safety officials said this afternoon.

It is understood that Joshua was seated behind the driver, along with another passenger, when the crash occurred. His security detail followed behind the Lexus.

Authorities said the SUV is believed to have been travelling ‘beyond the legally prescribed speed limit’ and lost control while making ‘an overtaking manoeuvre’, before crashing into a truck parked on the side of the road.

The Daily Mail understands the car’s tyre burst when it swerved and hit the truck.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn told Daily Mail Sport: ‘We are trying to contact Anthony and in the meantime we don’t want to speculate on how he is but thankfully he appears okay from what I have seen in the images. 

‘We are awaiting more information on what has happened and will update in due course.’ 

Hearn was promoting Joshua for his fight with Paul earlier this month and, after the bout, hit out at fans who claimed it had been ‘fixed’ or ‘staged’. 

‘Absolutely no way ever. If you look at a couple of the right hands AJ missed with in the first couple of rounds, they would have done the same job on Jake’s jaw if they would have landed,’ Hearn said. 

‘And Jake did very well to avoid them, so I always said going into the fight, AJ’s not the kind of guy who’s gonna come out like a train – just start swinging away. He’s gonna take his time and that’s what he did.’

Joshua ended up finishing the job with a knockout punch which broke Paul’s jaw in two places and led to multiple lost teeth.

Hearn did admit that Joshua was expecting the fight ending sooner than it did.

‘The fight definitely went a few more rounds than anticipated from Anthony. But it’s like even now, ‘yea it was definitely fixed.’ Some guy commented today on one of my posts it was definitely fixed. You do know that he’s broken his jaw in two places?’ Hearn said.