It’s the end of the world as we know it and we feel fine. Living in a post Mayweather-McGregor world anything is really possible. A boxing match between YouTube gamers just sold out an arena in London and broke view records.
Actually, we shouldn’t be surprised mother fuckers.
Is combat sports next evolution having marginally famous people fight for our viewing pleasure? Forget cross-weight super-fights, MMA versus boxing mega fights or famous people like CM Punk, James Toney and Herschel Walker occupying space on major MMA cards, in 2018 let’s double down on combat sports’ freak show roots.
YouTubers Joe Weller and KSI feuded online for months, cut a few diss tracks and finally ended settling their beef over the weekend inside a boxing ring. Reportedly the three round match, that ended in TKO, has drawn over 15 millions on YouTube.
.@KSIOlajidebt’s YouTube stream of the KSI vs Weller fight from Saturday has now reached almost 15.5 MILLION views. That is unbelievable.
— Tom Craze (@TomCraze) February 6, 2018
15 million? Do you know how many MMA, boxing, and pro wrestling promoters would sacrifice their first-born for 15 millions views of their product?
Our friends at Polygon go deeper into the trend of YouTube creators going to great lengths in order to chase views.
“It’s this type of behavior that many other YouTubers have problems with; the manufactured drama and diss track phenomenon that took over YouTube in 2017 is largely seen as a problematic for the platform. I wrote about this conundrum earlier this month, and how the “invasion of Viners” led to YouTube creators changing the way they produced content. The trends brought on by newcomers inevitably have an effect on more seasoned YouTubers.
It represents the changing tides of the YouTube we know. Refer to it however you want — the invasion of Viners or influencers moving from Instagram to YouTube — but the YouTube I remember from years ago lost part of itself this year. Even though YouTube should be thought of a country, with different states that don’t really pay attention to what other states are doing, it’s impossible to ignore when waves of new creators figure out how to game the system and create content that feels like it was born out of greed for views than creative endeavor.While others may see KSI and Weller’s fight as an inevitable end to the ongoing bickering, other YouTubers see it as something that could have been avoided entirely.”
Check out the full fight below and the post-fight reaction video from Weller.
Stay crazy human race/YouTubers/Brits/FIFA gamers.
