It has been announced that American Youtuber Logan Paul, most recently in the headlines for his controversial suicide forest video, has come to an agreement with British Youtuber Olajide William “JJ” Olatunj better known as KSI to a 2 fight boxing deal. The first fight of which is scheduled to be held in the Manchester Arena on the 25th August 2018, with a follow up to take place stateside before February 2019.
The owner of what is likely the most watched amateur fight of all time is KSI who defeated fellow Youtuber Joe Weller in three rounds of amateur boxing in early February. Since the fight, the video has amassed a whopping 30 million views which should come as no surprise when together the two fighters have a combined 23 million subscribers. This, however, pales in comparison to the over 35 million that are subscribed to the contestants of the scheduled Manchester event. The venue is also proportionally larger with a 21,000 seating capacity, a large step up from the sold-out London Copper Box Arena which held 7,500 spectators for the first Youtube bout.
In the post-fight interview of the initial fight, KSI called out “any Youtuber” that wanted to challenge him for what has now been called the Youtube boxing champion the (somewhat made up) belt which is currently held by KSI. This sparked callouts from a number of big Youtube personalities such as Bradley Martyn, Furious Pete and of course the Paul brothers both Logan and Jake. There has been quite the back and forth between KSI and the Pauls with a real will they won’t they, how long are they going to drag this thing out, kind of feel to the whole thing. This is likely in order to build some hype for the fight but it is important to remember that these young contenders predominantly make money from Youtube views, it seems in their interest, therefore, to stretch the affair out as long as possible.
In terms of experience, both of the fighters are boxing amateurs in every sense. Logan comes from an athletic background of wrestling and American Football which could prove advantageous in terms of ring generalship and fight knowledge. Both fighters have “trained” a term used loosely here (more like visited) the Money Team gym recently with KSI meeting and hitting pads with Floyd Mayweather Sr. It was also the stage for a confrontation between the two that seems to have sealed the deal.
In any case, we can be sure that there will be more footage (and a lot more trash talking videos) out before August with it set to become the most viewed amateur bout of all time and decide who is the Youtube boxing champ once and for all…or at least until the next time.
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