One of the greatest (and most hated) boxers of the 2000s, who retired in 2015, will fight a YouTube personality who is 0-1 as a professional boxer. And it will dominate America’s entertainment landscape.
Floyd Mayweather Jr., the professionally undefeated five-weight boxing champion, will fight Logan Paul, a YouTuber best known for posting a video of a corpse in a Japanese “suicide forest,” in an “exhibition” match in Miami. It will be a pay-per-view fight, with lesser-known, active boxers fighting real fights on the undercard. But Mayweather and Paul are the headliners in our reality television-obsessed social media age.
In other words, two of the most hated and hateable people are about to beat the heck out of one another, and the public is going to watch it.
Novelty boxing matches are all the rage in sports entertainment at the moment. Mayweather had one with MMA star Conor McGregor in 2017. Paul fought another YouTuber, once in an exhibition and again professionally, in 2019. His brother (also a YouTube star) most recently knocked out a washed-up MMA fighter in what one could only call a “fight” if one were feeling charitable.
That latter brawl is said to have gained over 1 million pay-per-view buys on the little-known website Triller. Mayweather-Paul will certainly match that, at least in a Showtime PPV. As is often the case with pay-per-views these days, many more will watch it using less than legal means.
Paul is the obnoxious personification of “influencer” culture, the outgrowth of social media that allows anyone to gain a following by being outrageous on the internet. Mayweather, known for flaunting his wealth, has a history of domestic violence. Naturally, people want to see them punch each other in the face.
This will end up being one of the most covered “sports” events of the year. It will flood social media feeds. It’s a fitting event for a culture dominated by Twitter and the Kardashians. Neither man will be seriously hurt, but they’ll both make a lot of money. And people will line up again for the next novelty fight either one of them makes as the process repeats itself all over again.
