It all started in 2017 with a friendly bout between friends and British YouTube stars Joe Weller and Theo Baker. Weller had promoted the match on his Instagram account, which caught the attention of fellow YouTuber KSI. He had 19 million subscribers at the time when he publicly challenged the winner to a fight.
Weller won the match and accepted KSIs challenge. The fight drew an in-person audience of around 7,500 at the Copper Box Arena in London, but over 1.6 million viewers live-streamed the match online. When KSI won by TKO in round 3, he called out two of the most famous YouTube sensations, Jake and Logan Paul, to get in the ring.
Logan Paul accepted and the two riled up their online audiences with plenty of trash talk in the months leading up to the fight. Both had around 20 million subscribers each, so news of the fight spread fast. KSI and Logan Paul fought for the title of YouTube Boxing Champion at the sold-out Manchester Arena with a pay-per-view audience of over 1.06 million. The match ended with a majority draw and a whopping 24 million YouTube replays.
The viewing numbers caught the eye of famous boxing promoter Eddie Hearn. He made it his mission to level up both fighters to professional status and make the rematch an even bigger event.
On November 9th, 2019, KSI and Logan Paul met once again for a rematch at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA.