When you think of the sport of Boxing, you usually think of, Muhammad Ali, Floyd Mayweather, Mike Tyson, heck you might even think of Butter Bean from the jackass movies. 

You usually don’t think of Social Media Influencers putting on the gloves and heading in the ring. Well, that’s the new amateur boxing scene. Stars of social media platforms that have beef with each other don’t take to Twitter to bash each other, instead, they settle things the old-fashioned way. 

It all started back on August 2nd, 2017 when English Youtuber, Joe Weller fought another English YouTuber, Theo Baker in a three-round amateur boxing match. Weller eventually won the match on points after putting Baker in two standing counts. 

Weller promoted the fight with a post on his Instagram. Under the post was a comment from KSI, a famous English YouTuber most well known for his FIFA videos. He said, “Lemme fight the winner haha”. These five words would change not only the youtube scene but the social media scene in general, forever. 

The next thing we know is that we have various YouTuber/influencer boxing matches occurring over the years. With KSI featured in most of them. In 2018, KSI was featured in two amateur fights. One of course against Joe Weller on February 3rd, and one against Logan Paul, another big name on the Youtube platform from the U.S.A. On the 25th of August where they would tie and have a pro fight rematch on November 9th, 2019 KSI would emerge victoriously. 

These youtube boxing events would spring into actual careers for some. Jake Paul, Logan Paul’s brother, is a YouTuber most famous for his vlogs who fought KSI’s brother on the same day Logan fought KSI. Jake Paul won this amateur fight against Deji on points. Jake would then go on to fight a pro fight against Nate Robinson; Paul won this fight by knocking out the ex-NBA player and 3-time dunk contest champion. So it’s not only YouTubers who aren’t afraid to get in the ring and throw hands. 

Jake Paul recently left his mansion in Calabasas, California to focus on a pro boxing career, and is considering Miami as his new home. The Paul brothers are both due to have pro fights coming up. Jake Paul is going to fight Mixed-Martial-Artist and former welterweight champion in the UFC Ben Askren, comes March 29th. His older brother, Logan is due to fight 15 major title-winning, arguably the GOAT of boxing, Floyd Mayweather in an exhibition match on April 19th. 

It’s crazy how one amateur fight in a gym sprung into various pro fights featuring social media personalities and athletes.

The new social media fight that has just been confirmed is against youtube personality, and most famous for his family channel, The Ace Family, Austin McBroom, and TikToker, Bryce Hall. How did all of this spring into action? You guessed it, an Instagram post. 

Last year in November, McBroom put out an Instagram post captioned, “There’s a whole lotta boxing talk going on lately. I’ve been an athlete my entire life so it would be disappointing for me not to get involved. Jake Paul has been running from me for years. I got $5m for whoever steps in the ring with me. TAG who you think wants the smoke”. So Originally McBroom wanted to fight Jake Paul but was turned down.

A year later, McBroom is holding a boxing event, TikTok vs. Youtube with various social media personalities going at it, with McBroom vs. Hall as the main fighting event. It is said that the fight is for $5 million and there will be a $1 million bonus for the winning fighter coming out of McBroom’s pocket. 

Since the fight was only confirmed on March 15, their teams are still talking with each other to figure out the details of this fight. There’s no telling what ounce gloves they’re going to be using, whether or not they’ll be using headgear, or how many rounds they will be fighting. It is most likely that they will be using headgear and the round count will be six because that is how these social media fights have gone in the past. 

It is crazy to think that just because of five words, and two pairs of gloves, the boxing world has expanded to new platforms.