ght champion Tyson Fury’s younger brother, Tommy Fury, emerged victorious over YouTuber KSI in an unlicensed boxing fight at Manchester’s AO Arena. The six-round cruiserweight contest saw both fighters grappling and failing to land decisive blows, but Fury ultimately won by majority decision. One judge scored it 57-57 while the other two scored it 57-56 in Fury’s favor.
KSI, whose real name is Olajide William Olatunji, described the result as a robbery and called for a rematch, insisting that he was the YouTuber while Fury was the boxer. Meanwhile, Fury dismissed his opponent as a sore loser and said he was done with crossover boxing. The event was not sanctioned by the British Boxing Board of Control as KSI does not hold a professional boxing license in the UK.
Despite criticism from boxing purists, crossover boxing events involving social media influencers continue to generate interest and draw massive crowds. The AO arena was filled to capacity for the Fury-KSI fight, with organizers hoping to sell around a million pay-per-view buys at the event and earn both fighters a seven-figure sum. The turnout was double that of last week’s world title contest between Leigh Wood and Josh Warrington, which is considered a fighter of the year contender.
The whole card of the event was sold on social media popularity and following of its fighters, rather than boxing ability or a marquee headliner. To illustrate the popularity of crossover boxing, American Alex Wassabi, who competed in the first fight of the TV broadcast, boasts over three million Instagram followers, over a million more than unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk. Prominent figures like Eddie Hearn, Chris Eubank Jr, Jill Scott, Aitch, Louis Theroux, and Mo Farah also attended the event
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