KSI and Tommy Fury are kidding themselves if they think this was real boxing

Tommy Fury beats KSI — but was it really boxing? Photo: Matt McNulty/Getty Images

The credit goes to the man who is actually in the arena and makes a complete ass of himself.

That's the impression I got from the Tommy Fury vs. KSI fight on YouTube, the DAZN boxing event/Misfits, which I watched on pay TV this Saturday night so you don't have to. Fury, a professional boxer of sorts, and KSI, a rapper, film director, celebrity and whatever with millions of fans on the Internet, fought for six rounds, and the judges gave a majority verdict in Fury's favor.

KSI felt he had been «robbed»; any boxing fan might have felt the same way when their £19.99 landed straight into a DAZN bank account, with the timing and precision that the punches so conspicuously lacked. To be fair to KSI, he was brave to get there and had a game plan: stay as far away as possible, jump a little, jump with a punch, and then grab the opponent. Fury couldn't solve the puzzle — the boxing equivalent of the Daily Star's tea break crossword — and he must be worried that he's found his level in this circus of oafs.

However, Fury's performance wasn't even the most embarrassing performance of the night: in the so-called co-headliner, Logan Paul, another YouTube celebrity, defeated one Dillon Danis, who fought professionally in mixed martial arts. Denis, after spending all this time making vile threats and comments towards Paul and his fiancée Nina Agdal (she filed for a restraining order), continued to be an absolute buffoon, throwing himself on the canvas to try to kick Paul with both legs, as well as wrestle him into rugby. He then attacked Paul after the final bell, security rushed into the ring, and Denis tried to fight the men in black bomber jackets, landing more blows on the bouncers than he managed in the six rounds of the fight.

Security comes into the ring to break up Logan Paul (R) and Dillon Danis. Photo: Getty Images/Matt McNulty

You might call it a grotesque parody or pantomime of the real sport, but that's part of the appeal. Judging by the sold-out Manchester arena, social media traffic and pay-per-view results, it was a huge success.

The trick that Misfits Boxing has pulled off is to create something like an elite sport that people talk about and admire as if it were an actual elite sport. Rivalries, rematches, trilogies, bouts, legacies, champions are all the language of true boxing, and many fans embrace Misfits Boxing as such. Add to that a controversial points decision, a chance for people to be outraged that the judges are blind or biased, and you have a great entertainment product that reaches a consumer group that many of the sports featured on this site can only dream of. from.

The fandom, generally young and largely male, comes across as frivolous, uptight, and lacking judgment or context. But why not? If you are 16, what do you have to compare it to? Just as someone who grew up only watching the IPL is unlikely to see the virtues of Sir Alastair Cook patiently clocking up a three-hour 50-minute mark on the green top of Chelmsford, for some fans it's not the ugly thing about boxing, it's about doing boxing. The inspiration is obviously World Wrestling Entertainment, that great American art form of heels and faces, kayfabe, storyline and gimmicks, although fans in Manchester had no qualms about loudly booing «The Star-Spangled Banner» when it was sung in front of Paul-Danis. fight.

Let people enjoy it if they like it. The only difficulty arises if practitioners confuse what they are doing with a real sport. One of the guys on Saturday's undercard, an American named Nuridin Shahid Shabazz who makes goofy TikTok videos under the name Deen The Great, won a fight against another guy and then challenged real-life boxers Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia to fight him. The Ring magazine ranks Davis as the second best active lightweight in the world and Garcia as the fourth, making Dean's plan ridiculous and possibly fatal. Tommy Fury may have unwittingly shown that the gap between professional and prankster is not always so wide, but one would really hope that the likes of Dean the Great don't find out about it.