An Assessment of YouTube Boxing

An Assessment of YouTube Boxing

By Will Lott

Following on from the undoubted commercial success of YouTube stars KSI and Logan Paul’s white collar bout at Manchester Arena in 2018, we have seen an increase in YouTuber’s boxing.

After that first bout ended in a draw, both KSI and Logan Paul turned professional and signed to have their rematch promoted by Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing.

Now Paul’s younger brother Jake has had his own professional bout against fellow Internet personality AnEsonGib.

As you would expect, this has been met with mixed reactions from the boxing fraternity, from fighters to the fans.

Eddie Hearn has made clear his reasoning for promoting the fights. Firstly, the YouTubers’ bring in a huge audience which gives the sport a chance to gain some new fans. Furthermore, other professionals on the undercard have a chance to gain a following themselves by featuring on the card and will likely earn a career high pay day.

This is pretty sound reasoning from a business point of view. Of course the purpose of a promoter is to make his company money and make his fighters money.

I’m sure the fighters on the KSI undercard weren’t complaining one bit given the likes of Nikita Ababiy would have had the chance to further promote himself in America. It also gave Billy Joe Saunders a US debut which again is needed if you’re going to up your purses even more.

Should even 1% of the millions of fans that KSI and Logan Paul possess become genuine fans of the sport, it can only be considered a success from Hearn.

However, to have a professional debut headlining a card which featured world champions and genuine title contenders feels wrong. The likes of Billy Joe Saunders and Devin Haney have been slowly building their own following over a number of years while fighting top level opponents.

I am not a huge follower of YouTube and therefore not a fan of any of the so called YouTuber’s I have mentioned.

For me the biggest issue isn’t their profession or lack of experience. It is seeing world championship fights being contested on their undercard.

World titles are to be contested by the elite. It is an event where we can truly witness world class fighters who have spent years perfecting their craft. To see the importance of a world title almost being overshadowed by celebrities is a shame to see.

Additionally, considering the years of dedication most fighters have to put in to have success at a professional level, it is unlikely people like KSI will ever have the time to achieve the same. As a result, performances or fights may appear sloppy and amateurish which essentially they are.

These YouTube personalities are fans turned amateur boxers who have found a clever way to make a quick buck. For that you can’t fault them and I am not necessarily against the idea of them fighting professionally.

However, I would prefer them all to fight on the same card without top level professionals at the pinnacle of their sport on the same card.

Boxing always needs to find ways to adapt and evolve in order to gain more fans of the sport and continue to build the profile of the fighters. If this is one way of doing it, so be it. Anyone can get a professional licence provided they pass a medical and show some level of ability so it would be wrong to prevent these YouTuber’s from living out a dream just because hardcore fans don’t agree with it.

However, I would say these fights should be kept to an undercard from high profile events as was done with Jake Paul’s debut. These fights should not be headlining.