Anthony Joshua did what he was meant to do on Friday night in Miami: he lay waste to Jake Paul’s bravest and most controversial experiment in boxing with a destructive victory that felt less like a sporting result than the restoration of sanity.

In their scheduled eight-round heavyweight bout at the Kaseya Center, streamed globally to Netflix’s roughly 300 million subscribers, the former twice unified heavyweight champion scored four knockdowns before stopping the YouTuber-turned-boxer in the sixth round of a mismatch that had prompted weeks of safety fears and moral hand-wringing. Joshua’s triumph, on a night purpose-built as much for memes as for punches, served as a reminder that boxing still adheres to its elemental laws and that power and pedigree eventually reassert themselves.

From the opening bell, the shape of the fight was unmistakable. Joshua took the centre of the ring uncontested while Paul circled him, moving laterally from left to right and back again. The first round was extremely low volume, punctuated by a smattering of boos from the audience. Paul landed a brief double jab to the body before darting back to safety. Joshua threw an overhand right that appeared to glance off a retreating target making full use of the 22ft ring. It was tentative, but Joshua’s control of space earned him the round.

The second followed a similar pattern. Joshua swung and missed early as Paul continued to run, using lateral movement to frustrate the bigger man. Joshua began to cut off the ring more effectively, but Paul clinched whenever distance closed, drawing louder boos from the near-capacity crowd. A brief clash of heads halted momentum, and though Joshua hinted at body work, he continued to headhunt. It was a round defined by inertia: Joshua doing little, Paul doing less.

By the third, Joshua’s patience began to pay off. Paul briefly stepped into the pocket and attempted an uppercut, catching only leather. Joshua responded by throwing more power shots, narrowly missing but drawing audible gasps from the crowd. Late in the round, a right hand to the ribs appeared to buckle Paul, the first clear sign of damage. Again, Joshua did not land much cleanly, but he was the only fighter attempting to win rather than merely survive.

The fight deteriorated toward farce in the fourth. Paul went into full retreat as Joshua struggled to corner him, wrapping up at every opportunity. The crowd grew increasingly hostile. Matters continued southward when Paul went down claiming a low blow, prompting a prolonged stoppage by the referee Chris Young that gave him valuable recovery time. It did little to help. Paul went down again, then again, clearly exhausted and buying time. Despite the repeated delays, the referee issued no point deduction, drawing sustained jeers from the stands.

By the fifth, the contest had crossed from mismatch into embarrassment. Paul flopped once more before finally being dropped by a clean right hand. He beat the count but looked close to collapsing. A second knockdown followed moments later, again from a right, and Joshua closed the round trapping Paul in the corner and unloading unanswered shots. Somehow Paul survived to the bell, though the proceedings had ceased to resemble a competitive sporting event.

The end came early in the sixth. Paul went down almost immediately, dragged himself upright, then fell again under sustained pressure. This time he could not beat the count. Young waved it off at the 1:31 mark, finally ending a bout that had long outlived its threadbare justification.