YOUTUBE has been a blessing for the fight fan. Everything from the latest Lumpinee stadium bouts to classic boxing matches to Jordan Burroughs’ greatest hits can be found at the press of a few buttons, and they won’t cost you a penny. It might not always be on the level copyright-wise, but the internet and especially YouTube have made it so that a fight fan might never even need to round out his interests or pursue other hobbies.
What no one could have predicted was that the profitable portion of YouTube would land on boxing and linger there. Monetization on YouTube is forever changing and the trends move quickly—rants over CS:GO footage, diss tracks, pranks, everything gets its turn and then falls out of fashion. In early 2018, KSI and Joe Weller wound up booking a boxing match and the YouTube grifting meta shifted again.
After KSI won the bout he called out Logan Paul—YouTube’s best bad-boy persona—and in August 2018, Manchester was the host to a card headlined by a bout between KSI and Logan Paul, and a bout between their younger brothers Deji and Jake Paul. It should tell you all you need to know about the motivations of those involved that they not only sold the fight live, a week later they uploaded it on YouTube for free anyway. Even in MMA the promoters don’t spit in your face as obviously as that.
KSI SHOVES LOGAN PAUL
Tempers boiled over at the press conference for #KSILoganPaul2 with @KSIOlajidebt pushing @LoganPaul at the head to head pic.twitter.com/8Zg7pn1w5L
— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) November 7, 2019
It would be very easy to pretend that this fight threatens to besmirch the good name of boxing, but if there is one thing that boxing promoters can get on board with it is grifting. Back in the 1970s, Frank Warren realized that people don’t care about actual boxing nearly as much as they want to watch a two hundred and eighty pound Lenny McLean swing wild and shout about being “The Guv’nor.”
The YouTube boxing sensation has opened up an entirely new market of tweens: a sizeable demographic which wasn’t even considered by most fight promoters. And so after seeing the numbers for KSI vs Logan Paul 1, Eddie Hearn—being the Frank Warren of the moment—leapt on the opportunity and has booked a rematch this weekend, with the interesting stipulation that this will be a professional contest.
When you stop to think about it, you realize that the fight game is perfect for YouTube personalities. It is an easy step from diss tracks and rants to press conference beefs. It never gets past the level of calling each other “bitch” but then neither did Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather and they were noted for their biting wit in their respective sports. Not everyone cares about the ins and outs of fighting, but everyone understands “talk shit, get hit.” Before “FOMO” was a term, the concept was putting butts in seats at the fights. From McGregor and Mayweather all the way back to Muhammad Ali—half of the appeal was that no one wanted to miss the moment the big talker was forced to eat crow.
But when you go in with your expectations so low, you cannot help but be pleasantly surprised. While he is best known for his work in the field of sociopathy, Logan Paul was a decent wrestler in school and allegedly a serious fight fan. When he got in the ring with KSI it actually looked like he had some semblance of a plan based on what he had already seen from his opponent.
KSI had humiliated Weller by having a competent jab and some conditioning. Weller was game but simply covered up and walked forwards. For the child watching boxing for the first time you couldn’t have asked for a better demonstration of why the jab caught on a couple of hundred years ago and why it hasn’t gone away since.
All of KSI’s jabbing had been done with his free hand—his right hand—down by his waist. When Paul and KSI met, Paul immediately got to work flicking his own jab in KSI’s face, then pulling back and trying to blind-side KSI with the left hook over his low right hand as he returned.
Not only was Paul capitalizing on a major flaw in KSI’s game, he was considerably bigger than the Brit. Yet after a couple of rounds of trouble KSI managed to pull ahead with his cardio and get his straight blows landing. It wasn’t Donaire vs Inoue, but it was a fight of phases and changes of momentum, and those tend to be the most entertaining kind. An improvement in Paul’s conditioning, or a tightening of the mechanics and increase in punch variety from KSI could spell the difference in the rematch.
The real surprise of that first card was Jake Paul. He seemed like the doughy, non-athlete of the Paul brothers and is unarguably one of the internet’s most obnoxious personalities, but he put on a terrific little showing. He clearly had some idea what he was doing because he jabbed his way in, scored good body blows, and even used his head position to block clinches and infight effectively when he had his man hurt! His opponent quickly tired and Paul was able to score one of the few stoppages on the card.
And that is the pleasant surprise of the whole experiment: this isn’t James Toney going to the UFC because he desperately needs money and plans to tap out at the first acceptable opportunity. At its core it seems like most of these lads involved actually have a passion for boxing.
The Paul brothers and KSI were already millionaires and trained combat sports recreationally. This puts them in the bizarre position where they are headlining cards and able to train full time with good coaches and facilities, but also haven’t had to earn their way there. On the one hand that is brutally unfair to all the boxers slaving away on undercards, trying to break through. On the other hand—so far at least—some of these rich kids have come out and put on fights that are better than they have any right to be.
But the most positive thing that can be said about this fight is that it gets children and teenagers talking about boxing. It might not paint the business of boxing in a positive light for the adult sports fan, but it paints the pursuit of boxing in a very positive light for young boys and girls. This is the third major event headlined by YouTubers—the idea has at least some legs and the kids are eating it up.
If a child sees KSI or one of the Pauls boxing and decides he wants to watch some more boxing, or even take up training as a result, that is a net gain for the sport. The fact that the genuinely marvellous middleweight, Billy Joe Saunders is defending his belt on the same card improves the chances of this happening significantly.
You could pretend it is an affront that Saunders is opening for the non-fighters, but Saunders doesn’t care: he’s getting fat stacks of cash and exposure to a new audience. And anyway, this is boxing: the sport has disgraced itself enough times without the help of YouTubers—we don’t need to pretend this is a stain from which it cannot recover.
