LOS ANGELES — Saturday night inside the Staples Center, while a humdrum super middleweight title bout was inspiring grumbles of “Billy Joe Slumber” among the crowd, the real action could be found in the arena concourse. There, rather than watching the undercard, throngs of teens milled about the hallways, hovering near the bathroom entrances and concessions stands in hopes of spotting the social media celebrities who, like these fans, had turned out for the main event rematch between YouTube stars Logan Paul and KSI.

Along a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street-level VIP entrance, teenagers lined up three deep with their mobile phone cameras sighted in and their thumbs locked and loaded to press record as soon as anyone famous, almost famous or insta-famous, stepped inside. Their focus was unwavering — the heavens could have opened and deposited the messiah behind them and it wouldn’t have broken their trance.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened, minus any evidence of the divine. As the flock kept watch over the VIP entrance, a man walked by. He wore sandals and a white robe, with a wine-colored rope knotted around his waist. His brown hair fell down to his shoulders, and he sported a full, brown beard. No one noticed as he passed, until finally when he was nearly out of sight, a young man with a tight fade and close-cropped hair shouted: “YO! It’s Jesus! Jesus Christ, bro!” He took three running steps after Jesus, phone in hand and selfie-ready, but it was too late. The Son of God had already disappeared down the portal to Section 108.

I asked the kid who’d given chase if the costumed man we’d just seen was a social media figure known for impersonating Jesus or if it was just some normal guy who came to the event dressed as Jesus. “Nah, bro,” he told me. “It’s just Jesus.”

For most people over 25, confusion over who was famous, who was not, and what any of these celebrities actually did may have been the defining experience of attending Logan Paul-KSI II. The event’s organizers, Matchroom Boxing and streaming platform DAZN, promised that it would attract a group of fans unlike anything the combat sports crowd had ever seen, and the view from inside Staples Center sure seemed to confirm that.

From the gaggles of pre-adolescent children chaperoned by their parents to the roving packs of high school hypebeasts; from the tattooed games who’d amassed millions upon millions of online followers to the crew of pornstars making out and twerking in their floor seats; from Jesus of Nazareth to Justin Bieber, Logan Paul and KSI produced a freak show that felt totally new to boxing fans while also feeling like the kind of freak show that couldn’t exist in any setting besides boxing.

In the boxing community, the lead-up to Paul-KSI II raised questions over whether it was appropriate for the sport to elevate two internet celebrities to main event status in their professional debut and whether the stunt would benefit boxing by exposing millions of potential new fans to the sport.

(In the YouTube community, the lead-up appeared to focus on trash talk and drama, which makes sense because trash talk and drama are what helped Paul and KSI grow their respective follower counts past 20 million each.)


(Michael Tran / Getty Images)
As the bout neared, Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn and DAZN USA Executive Vice President Joe Markowski repeatedly made the case that Paul and KSI, by sharing training videos and pre-fight hype with their massive audiences, could expose Generation Z viewers to the sport and hopefully convert a few of them into fans. For professional fighters on the undercard like Billy Joe Saunders and rising lightweight star Devin Haney, sharing the bill with Paul and KSI would mean greater-than-average publicity and a chance to perform on what promised to be one of DAZN’s most-streamed boxing shows of 2019.

The “good for boxing” argument, in essence, encouraged fight fans to accept Paul-KSI II as a worthwhile marketing gamble. You could almost look at it as product placement — boxing was cutting a deal with Paul and KSI, providing the platform and expertise for them to stage a professional bout in return for them putting the sport in front of their devotees via YouTube and social media.

And, like many marketing schemes, there’s no immediate way to determine if the payoff was worth the investment. It would be insane to expect to convert every Logan Paul fan into a boxing fan, just like it would be nuts to expect every moviegoer who watched “The Avengers” to go out and buy a Dr. Pepper.

Paul-KSI II probably had some positive effects on boxing. Those could be as straightforward as creating new fans. Or the gains could be more abstract, like increasing familiarity with the sport or the fighters associated with the event. Yes, the Saunders and Haney bouts ended up being unspectacular, and the promoters probably could have seen that coming, but even those who snoozed through the undercard fights may have caught Ryan Garcia’s commentary and thought to keep an eye out for his next fight; the between-fight promos featuring Canelo Alvarez and hyping Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua II could have caught someone’s eye.

Rather than continuing to bicker and speculate over the nebulous benefits Saturday’s event may have conferred on the sport, let’s focus on the concrete business goals of Paul-KSI II.

For the fighters, who were both guaranteed $900,000 purses, the rematch provided a worthwhile payday. Perhaps more importantly, since Paul and KSI’s primary business revolves around turning their lives into an endless stream of story nuggets to engage their audiences, prolonging the feud provided another year’s worth of content. The looming rematch inspired hundreds of videos and posts rife with spicy taunts and badass training footage, generating views and likes and comments for brand partnerships and merchandise sales. Paul-KSI II even spun off side beefs to goose the YouTube metrics and fill the social media feeds of the fighters’ less-famous siblings and bros (note the difference).

For the promoter, Matchroom Boxing, it was easy money. Hearn saw that the YouTubers’ first fight in August 2018 sold-out Manchester Arena and generated more pay-per-view buys than any boxing event that year besides Canelo-GGG II (thanks largely to a low PPV price of $10). Hearn also saw that the first bout ended in a draw.

If Paul and KSI could gin up that much interest and revenue on their own, why not cash in on a rematch under professional rules and with promotional might of DAZN and Matchroom pushing the event?

For DAZN, the self-styled Netflix of sports, Paul-KSI II was about attracting subscribers beyond the boxing fans the platform has catered to since its U.S. launch last year. The streaming network has moonshot goals of obtaining live rights to NBA, NFL and MLB games, but those leagues won’t give DAZN a sniff unless it can sign up enough subscribers to attract the big-money whales of pro sports.

In addition to the new subscriptions, by working with two celebrities who’ve risen to fame by mastering the digital media attention economy, DAZN set itself up to gain perhaps more media attention for the Paul-KSI II novelty fight than for any other event it has aired. That includes the three Canelo fights that DAZN has streamed and Ruiz Jr.’s shocking upset of Joshua.

Boxing YouTube sites like the Mayweather Channel and Seconds Out have flooded the zone on Paul-KSI II coverage as if it were the biggest fight since Mayweather-Pacquiao. Why? Scroll through their video pages and you’ll see: Interviews with KSI and his sparring partners garnered more than 800,000 views each; a moving clip of Jeff Mayweather reflecting on the death of super middleweight prospect Patrick Day clocks in at 23,000.

General interest publications that rarely cover boxing like the New York Times and the Ringer deigned the sport worthy once Paul and KSI got involved. Buzzfeed was live-vlogging from press row Saturday night. As long as digital publications make money by selling ads on clicks generated by free content, media can’t afford to ignore Logan Paul and KSI. Their metrics are too good.

Even here at The Athletic, whose subscription model insulates it from traffic-chasing, devoted big-fight resources to Paul-KSI II. DAZN, which is still establishing its brand in the United States, reaped the windfall of this media frenzy.

In a way, figures like Paul and KSI have discovered an end route around traditional forms of celebrity. Instead of acquiring fame by being athletes, actors or musicians — famous by being outstanding at something — they used social media and YouTube to become famous first. Now, when they want to branch out to acting or rapping or professional prize-fighting, the power structures of those industries take them seriously, because the built-in audience that Logan Paul and KSI can offer to a company like DAZN is almost as large as the audience the platform can attract with major fights like Ruiz-Joshua II or a potential third fight between Canelo Alvarez and Gennadiy Golovkin.

Inside Staples Center, during the hours prior to Paul-KSI II, there was little indication that the 12,000-plus fans who arrived for the main event cared much for the real professional boxing that preceded it. The arena remained quiet throughout the undercard, with many of those seated putzing away on their phones while Saunders and Haney defended their belts. When the swing bout between middleweight prospect Nikita Ababiy and Jonathan Batista was announced prior to the main event, fans in the concourse groaned at the delay: “What the fuck!!!”


Until Paul and KSI began their ring walks, the buzz in the concourse felt noticeably greater than in the arena. While Saunders’ 168-pound title defense inspired intermittent boos of boredom, the teens hanging out by concessions were trading breathless tales of chasing down YouTube stars for selfies. When Logan Paul’s mother strolled through the hallway in a pink jumper, a line of fans ran alongside her, ducking in for shared screen time as she made her way to a VIP elevator. Without breaking stride, she smiled for almost a dozen selfies and video greetings during the two-minute walk.

In the nacho line, I met Antonio and Ramiro Sanchez, brothers from Fresno who’d driven down from California’s Central Valley. Antonio had turned 17 the day before, and the trip to Los Angeles was a present to himself, he said. He was dressed in the Dwayne Johnson-inspired outfit Logan Paul had worn to the London press conference to promote the rematch: a shiny, skin-tight black turtleneck tucked into black skinny jeans with all-black sneakers and a light gold chain hung around his neck.

“I have the glasses, too,” Antonio said, referring to the circular frames Paul wore at the presser, “but I thought maybe it’s too weird.”

Perhaps, but he was one of no fewer than six Logan Paul fans in attendance Saturday night who decided to dress in Paul’s all-black turtleneck get-up. Antonio had been following Paul since 2015 when his brother discovered Paul’s Vines. It was the first time either of them had attended a live boxing event, but they knew a bit about the sport — enough to name drop Canelo, Ryan Garcia and GGG.

When prompted, Antonio volunteered a hopeful assessment of the chances that Paul-KSI II might attract new fans to the sport.

“Look at all the little kids,” he said, smiling through his braces. “Maybe they’re gonna get inspired.”


(Melina Pizano/Matchroom Boxing USA)
A few hundred feet down the concourse, near the Blaze Pizza stand, 13-year-old Victoria George received her live boxing initiation when a passerby knocked a plastic cup of beer to the floor and it splattered all over her legs. Just as her mother walked off in search of napkins, Victoria’s younger brother, 11-year-old Andre George, spotted the basketball trick shot YouTuber Jiedel and demanded their mother’s phone. “Turn it on, turn it on!” he said, urging her to unlock the phone before he ran off in pursuit of a selfie.

“My kids decided to bring me here,” Stephanie Culver, mother of Victoria and Andre, said.

None of them had ever attended a live boxing event prior to Saturday night, she said, but after purchasing the first Paul-KSI bout on YouTube last year, there was no way to deter the kids from attending the rematch.

“You can’t control the exterior,” Culver said, referring to the influence internet celebrities like Paul have on her kids. “So you have to be with them constantly and always talking to them.”

“She thinks their content is a little mature for us,” Andre explained.

No kidding: Paul and KSI spent the lead-up to the fight joking about one another’s dead dogs, dick size and unborn children. Still, there was something poignant about watching Culver and other devoted parents like her lead their children through the lunacy surrounding Paul-KSI II. Their experience didn’t quite match the common boxing fan story of being introduced to the sport by a dad or uncle or cousin who was obsessed with the fight game, but it left room to imagine kids like Andre and Victoria falling in love with Saturday night’s drama and then developing a deeper appreciation for the sport.

As the evening wore on and the main event drew nearer, the concourse crowds thickened and the family-friendly vibe was replaced by something more aggressive. The bands of young men who had been roaming the halls seeking selfies with female internet stars grew into hordes. They prowled the concessions area, scanning the crowd for signs of the Instagram-famous — eyebrow makeup thick enough to have been painted on with a calligraphy brush; press-on plastic eyelashes shaped like miniature sets of spikes; lips glossed to the point they can reflect light into the cosmos.

When the fitness model Sommer Ray emerged from one of the floor seat portals, the mob howled in recognition and then chased her around a corner, where she ducked into the safety of a women’s restroom. After she disappeared behind a wall, the crowd stayed put, seemingly content to stake out her return. They may not have moved, if not for Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul’s wife, who stepped out from a portal flanked by security guards stiff-arming the space around her. The pack migrated over to Mongeau, who poked her tongue out for selfies while crossing the concourse to buy drinks at the Golden Road Brewhouse.


Moments later, the swarm re-formed around Instagram model Abby Rao. They resembled an especially horny band of Pokémon Go players, chasing targets from spot to spot for selfies, trying to collect ‘em all. Rao was gracious, playing along and posing for photos with a procession of slightly flustered boys in their teens and early 20s while telling each of them: “Hi! I love you guys!”

Moments before Paul and KSI were finally ready to fight, the crowd erupted. Even though the event was held in Los Angeles, the frenzy inside Staples Center felt similar to the reception Jose Ramirez gets when he fights in Fresno or the excitement Terence Crawford generates in Omaha, Neb. Paul may be from Ohio and KSI from London, but a few miles from Hollywood, in a city where youth and glamour and fame and money are often worshiped like tenets of a religion, the two YouTube millionaires were performing in front of their people.

When Rick Ross began rapping in the ring during KSI’s ring walk, and the fighter marched through the arena wearing a red-and-black, sequined, tasseled, orgy mask, Eddie Hearn, ring announcer Michael Buffer and referee Jack Reiss stood along the ropes, all of them pursing their lips and glancing at each other from the corners of their eyes, as if they wanted to burst out in laughter and ask, Holy hell, what’s next?

That’s when Brian King Joseph stepped to the center of the ring, his face framed by golden dreadlocks, and played “God Save the Queen” on his neon-lit electric violin.


The six-round fight delivered drama and controversy, with both Paul and KSI giving all they had. It was close to everything boxing fans like to see, minus the skill. Although both fighters had improved since their amateur bout last year — KSI learned how to jab, while Paul had expanded his repertoire of punches beyond his jab and right cross — Saturday’s clash followed a similar pattern. KSI was wild and energetic, pushing Paul backward with lunging overhand rights. Paul was less active but landed cleaner punches.

As KSI backed Paul up to the ropes and appeared to score a knockdown in the third round, the crowd lost its mind and continued roaring its approval despite Reiss’ decision to rule it a slip because KSI’s punch landed near the back of Paul’s head. Either the fans didn’t understand that the knockdown didn’t count, or they didn’t care.

In the fourth round, KSI rushed in and Paul caught him with a pair of cracking, well-timed uppercuts that hurt KSI and had him headed to the canvas. Unfortunately for Paul, he didn’t stop there, rapping KSI with two illegal blows to the back of the head, the first while KSI was going down and the second after KSI had already dropped to his knees.

Reiss, one of the best and most respected referees in the sport, is known for his no-nonsense demeanor. He ruled the knockdown, gave KSI an eight-count, and then punished Paul with a two-point deduction. In a closely contested, six-round fight, the penalty all but guaranteed a KSI win, unless Paul could finish him or score more knockdowns.

Few boxing insiders would have predicted Reiss would enter “get off my lawn” mode during Saturday’s glorified exhibition. And perhaps, if the thousands of teens and 20-somethings in attendance had grasped the extent to which Reiss had affected the likely outcome of the fight, they would have taunted him with chants of O-K BOOM-ER!

Neither Paul nor KSI had the stamina to finish strong in the final two rounds, although that didn’t stop the crowd from rising to its feet during the final 30 seconds of Round 6 and raising the kind of hell that’s so loud it seems to freeze time. Ringside judge Lou Moret told The Athletic’s Lance Pugmire that it was the loudest crowd he’d heard since the Round 12 crescendo Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury generated almost a year ago.

After months of hand-wringing about what Paul-KSI II meant for the integrity of boxing — a textbook oxymoron if there ever was one — the event delivered. Diehard fight fans’ skepticism was well-placed, but now, it’s time to admit: That pair of wankers from YouTube fought hard and put on a fun show.


(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
The event’s success might also be evidence of a trend. Circus fights like Paul-KSI II and Mayweather-McGregor have arguably been the two boxing events that had the greatest mainstream cultural impact in recent years. Could these sideshow blends of competition, celebrity and new media hype wind up playing a larger role in the future of pro sports than traditional fans care to admit? Sports marketing experts believe the change is already underway.

“One of the things we preach constantly is this whole shift from sport to ‘sport-tainment,’” said Brandon Brown, a professor at NYU’s Tisch Institute for Global Sport. “The younger generation, with a short attention span, are not paying attention to the actual game of sport. They’re in it for the entertainment. It’s no longer sport for the sake of competition. That’s just where we are in 2019.”

Traditional fans will no doubt cringe at Brown’s projection, but does it really sound far-fetched? Internet celebrities promoting a fight with insult comedy and crude innuendo delivered straight to fans’ lizard brains thanks to 21st-century mobile technology. Coverage by a captive, click-thirsty media that, even if it prefers sport to sport-tainment, can’t afford to ignore the latter. Starstruck children chasing down influencers and creators who are famous for taking pictures of themselves, then asking the stars to take pictures with them. Porn actresses writhing at ringside, a few rows away from where Dan Bilzerian and the Instagram sugar daddies flash their cash. A real Justin Bieber and a fake Jesus Christ.

And somewhere on the undercard, buried beneath this great, big show, a couple of championship boxing matches. Yeah, that sounds like the future we deserve. And having sat through Logan Paul and KSI’s vision of it, allow me to assure you: It’s not as bad as it sounds.

(Top photo: Ed Mulholland / Matchroom Boxing USA)