KSI vs Logan Paul: Battle of YouTube stars ends in draw – as it happened
We bring you every jab, hook and diss track, while attempting to put this new media monstrosity in context...
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Your support makes all the difference.In front of 18,000 fans at the Manchester Arena, YouTube stars KSI and Logan Paul shared the spoils after six rounds of tense white-collar boxing.
While many may pour scorn on a matchup between two amateurs, more than 800,000 streamed the event, billed as the “biggest event in internet history”, at its peak.
At least a half a million more watched on illegal streams, despite the attempts of the organisers to quash them.
The match was the second bout for KSI, who defeated Joe Weller in front of a 7,000-strong sellout in London’s Copper Box Arena back in February.
Fans not able to make it to Manchester for the fight had to pay £7.50 ($10) for the privilege of watching a live stream of the action.
:: Chris Stokel-Walker (CSW) reporting live from the MEN Arena and Adam Hamdani (AH) following all the online reaction
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More than a quarter of a million pounds of bets on the outcome of the event had been taken by British bookmakers by Saturday afternoon, The Independent can exclusively reveal.
“We were blown away by the numbers we saw after KSI's last fight, but that pales in significance in truth, with interest from a betting perspective likely to hit £300,000 by close of play on Saturday night,” said Ladbrokes’ Alex Apati.
If we're coming across a little quietly on the live stream, fear not - the arena is currently only half full. Everyone's at the merch stands. (CSW)
Big heavy punches from both men, Jrizzy Jeremy looking tired already. 10-9 round to Call Me Ham to get things off. (AH)
Call me Ham vs Jrizzy Jeremy
Call Me Ham begins the second round landing heavily and landing often. Jrizzy Jeremy comes back with his own punches and you can see the clear lack of skill from both. The lighter fighter takes a knee midway through and is given a standing count, immediately coming back with a stiff left hand of his own.
Zero technique in this fight, a lot of trying hard. 10-9 round to Call Me Ham again. Into the final round... (AH)
For context, this opening bout is already more exciting than the kickoff match on the last YouTube boxing event in London in February, which was largely two people hugging each other. (CSW)
The third round was just a tired round. Three rounds, two minutes a piece, fair play to them. Another 10-9 round to Call Me Ham in my opinion.
We wait for the official scorecards... (AH)
Call Me Ham wins the fight and you could see it from the offset. His power and size shone through - it wasn't a good contest by any means.
"I can't wait to eat fatty foods now, I've been dieting. I can't wait to eat now. Massive shoutout to Jeremy," says Call Me Ham.
Onto the next one. (AH)
This is absolutely massive.
One fight into the undercard and we already have 400,000 concurrent viewers. That is astonishing considering it is a pay-per-view event. (AH)
We're now in the live lull between fights (aka merch buying breaks) for those of us in attendance in Manchester, but looking around the arena makes for an interesting view of YouTube's demographics.
First the obvious: this is a young crowd. Almost anyone over 35 is chaperoning their pre-teen children. It's for that reason the Culture Secretary warned the BBC about the rise of YouTube - these are the viewers of tomorrow.
But they're also two-thirds male: many of the YouTubers people are here to see are laddish. Getting out more of that female audience to events such as this is the challenge. (CSW)
MOMO (not the scary WhatsApp meme that’s reported to be encouraging children to harm themselves) and RossiHD are up next. MOMO’s particularly notable for the pace of his uploads – he’s a video creation machine.
RossiHD is a British FIFA gamer with just over 700,000 subscribers on YouTube.
If you’re worrying that all these names are interchangeable and indistinguishable, don’t worry: most of the people who’ve travelled to Manchester and who are tuning in at home haven’t come here for anyone but the Olatunji and Paul families. (CSW)
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