YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI, whose real name is Olajide Olatunji , are preparing to go head-to-head in a boxing match set for Saturday night in Manchester, England, which has sold more than 15,000 tickets.
The fight will be streamed by pay-per-view on YouTube at 4 p.m. EST for $10 in the U.S. and is expected to draw in millions of online viewers. KSI won a February fight with fellow YouTuber Joe Weller, which was streamed live on YouTube for free and brought in a combined viewership of nearly 40 million people.
The two YouTube celebrities are controversial, yet wildly popular online with a following of more than 37 million combined YouTube subscribers. Paul, an American prankster who made his start on the video app Vine years ago before switching over to YouTube, and KSI, a British gamer and rapper, are duking it out over a feud that has played out through online videos, music tracks and press conferences.
Paul's controversial past includes a now-deleted video from January that he and his friends recorded in Japan's Aokigahara Forest showing a man who appeared to have hanged himself from a tree.
Paul and his friends could be seen laughing and smiling in the video when they discovered the body. He later apologized in both a statement and a YouTube video, saying he was "ashamed" and "disappointed" in himself. Paul reportedly took about three weeks off from posting content.
KSI is accused of perpetuating misogynistic views in past videos, including a series of 2012 videos he titled "Being Awkward" where he would ask women inappropriate sexual questions in public. He later posted an apology video where he said he could "see now why I got into a lot of trouble. I was such a virgin back then". In another video from August 2014, KSI asked a tabloid newspaper Page 3 model about her sex life while calling her "a slut" in a voiceover, according to The Guardian.
KSI's manager Liam Chivers told BBC News the fight is "100 percent real," unlike much of the popular wrestling show WWE Raw.
"People think these guys are not professional boxers, this is just a bit of fun, it's just an amateur fight," Chivers said. "No, these two guys are on an absolute pedestal and they have egos, they have hugely passionate audiences."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ramsey Touchberry is a Washington Correspondent for Newsweek based in the nation's capital, where he regularly covers Congress.
Prior to ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
