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...

KSI vs Logan Paul weigh in

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.

Key Points

• How to watch the fight
• How did we get here?
• Trash talking commences
• Rematch talks already

[25 August 2018 18:37 · Adam Hamdani]

JMX drops Coach Richard early in the second round, gets back up and tries to get his jab going but again the reach and size difference between the two men shows.

10-8 round to JMX. (AH)

[25 August 2018 18:40 · stokel]

Biggest reaction of the night as Coach Richard gets acquainted with the canvas after a heavy blow. (CSW)

[25 August 2018 18:42 · Adam Hamdani]

JMX goes in for the kill in the third and gets a strong knockdown with a left hook, Coach Richard stumbles and survives the round. Another 10-8 round to JMX. (AH)

[25 August 2018 18:44 · Adam Hamdani]

Coach Richard came out swinging in the fourth and final round but his onslaught took a lot out of him, with JMX applying body shots to put even more pressure on him. A 10-9 final round to the man who will take the bout with comfort. (AH)

[25 August 2018 18:44 · Adam Hamdani]

[25 August 2018 18:46 · Adam Hamdani]

As expected, JMX wins comfortably 40-35.

He celebrates big time with his team and it's deserved - he trained hard and showed actual bits of skill, a good solid performance. (AH)

[25 August 2018 18:48 · stokel]

People really love JMX in the arena, even if he is a bit sweary for the younger members of the audience. (CSW)

[25 August 2018 18:53 · Adam Hamdani]

Yep. You read that right. Over 500,000 live viewers for a pay-per-view amateur boxing event. Astounding. (AH)

500,000+ viewers 

[25 August 2018 18:56 · Adam Hamdani]

The curse of the impenetrable usernames strikes again: the next match sees FaZe Sensei (who’s previously trained in kickboxing) take on overtflow (a jiu-jitsu fighter).

FaZe – real name Isiah Ocasio-Pantoja – has actually sparred with KSI in the run-up to this fight, though we’ll have to see whether he’ll be limited by not being able to do the whole kicking thing in this fight.

  

A quick reminder of the context for this whole night: it’s the second white collar boxing match between online video stars.

It pits Logan Paul, who started the year mired in controversy for sharing with his 18 million subscribers footage of a dead body hanging in a Japanese forest, against Olajide “KSI” Olatunji, who bested his challenger, Joe Weller, in the previous YouTube boxing match, held in front of 7,000 at London’s Copper Box Arena in February.

[25 August 2018 18:57 · Adam Hamdani]

Yep. (AH)