You may not like it, but this is the future of boxing

You may not like it, but this is the future of boxing

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Rightly or wrongly, YouTube celebrities stepping into the ring in boxing gloves have opened the floodgates to new entertainment and revenue streams. This isn’t real boxing, it’s celebrity white-collar boxing, but it still has his boxing fans, and some people in the boxing world are rattled and furious.

Should professional boxing be concerned about growth trends?novice boxer from love island Or is the world of influencers mining wealth and fortune, fame and accolades from boxing matches and taking headlines from people who have honed their skills in the ring from an early age? Diluted?

At the center of this phenomenon is UK’s most influential YouTuber, rapper and celebrity with 24 million subscribers and 41 million social media followers, ‘KSI’ aka JJ Olatunji. Olajide Olayinka Williams, and the Paul brothers Jake and Logan. Between the two he has 45 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

KSI is so influential that the 29-year-old from Watford last week signed a five-year contract with sports broadcaster DAZN for the aptly named ‘Misfits’ boxing series. – per view. Last weekend, his fourth event in the Misfits series, his KSI vs Faze Temperrr boxing event (where KSI knocked out his opponent’s Temperrr in the first round) saw him on his DAZN in the UK and USA. garnered 300,000 pay-per-view purchases and sold out. Wembley Arena. I attended an event.

Witnessing the event first-hand, 10,000 fans turned up at the venue from start to finish, a far cry from professional boxing events and a much younger crowd at Wembley Arena.

At ringside were Louis Theroux, Holly Willoughby, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and their teenage children. KSI drew rave reviews for stopping his nemesis Temperrr (yes, the three Rs), while on the undercard were OnlyFans star Elle Brooke, DJ Tom Zanetti, BMX rider Ryan Taylor and TikToker Salt. Many famous faces also made an appearance, such as Papi. It was a huge success. The boxing was predictable, far from amateur or professional level, and often like playground scraps.

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