When one talks about boxing, a few names like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather come to mind.
They are all champions in their own right, and it is not an easy feat for anyone to face these world champions.
Therefore, when a guy from the internet challenged Mayweather, it implored the question, "who is Logan Paul?"
Love him or hate him, this is a story of Logan. What has he done in the past? What does he have that can fight with the world champion, even though he is not a professional fighter? Find out the story on Main Stand.
First Generation YouTuber
YouTube became the number one internet site for video and streaming seven to eight years ago. The site gave birth to a new career called YouTuber, an occupation that makes revenue from the views and advertisements in the videos they create.
It is the same with Logan Paul, who has been posting content on his YouTube channel for over five years. His channel was created on 29 August 2015 and currently has more than 23 million subscribers and 5.7 billion views.
This is not his first channel on YouTube. Logan created his first channel named "Zoosh" when he was 10 years old, which might be an essential lesson that led to the success of his second channel.
Logan Paul uploads many types of content, such as role-playing, video game streaming, reaction video, pranks, and videos that require money to make, like opening card packs.
The main selling point of Logan and his brother, Jake, is comedy. Four to five years after Logan's channel gained popularity, he received more than 17 million dollars yearly.
He often became the target of negativity due to his content being clickbait or even deemed inappropriate at times from racial jokes and the way he flexes his wealth. From all of his videos, there are always dislikes in 10% of all the ratings. So when there are one million likes, there will always be around 100,000 dislikes.
However, Logan Paul always stayed above all the haters and handled it pretty well by just ignoring all of them altogether. Until one day, three years ago, everything came to its breaking point.
It was the video of him and his friends going into Aokigahara, a forest below Mouth Fuji, nicknamed the suicide forest, where many Japanese end their lives.
In his video, Logan and his friends found an unidentified corpse and reacted to it as surprising and funny. However, millions of people commented that it was disrespectful and disgusting. The video was then subsequently removed.
This turn of events was Logan's important life lesson. Many people heavily criticized him, and his business relationship with YouTube was cut loose. They also canceled him from Google Preferred, a program in which brands put their commercials on the recommended top five percent of YouTube creators.
The loss of profits made Logan Paul realize that he couldn't stay above the drama anymore, so he released an apology video saying he was sincerely sorry and would improve in the future.
"I should have never posted the video. I should have put the cameras down and stopped recording what we were going through. There are a lot of things I should have done differently, but I didn't. And for that, from the bottom of my heart, I am sorry. I want to apologize to the internet," said Logan Paul before deleting the controversial video.
At that time, the haters were satisfied with the picture of a regretted Logan Paul everywhere on the internet. He was deemed as online trash and was made a meme out of it. It was all on him which path he would take next in this monsoon of negativity.
Turning hatred into money
Everybody wanted to see him fall, and he knew that well. But what's excellent about Logan was that he looked at this crisis deeper. He thought that if people wanted to see him fall, why didn't he fall for them and get some money into his pocket too? So he turned the situation into an advantage to make new content.
The new content he thought of was boxing, not just in an amateur tournament, but in a real professional fight. Anyone can see him knocked out live on stage only if they are willing to pay.
He started the fight with just a bluff online before it became an actual match between him and Olajide Olayinka Williams, a.k.a KSI, another famous YouTuber from the U.K.
His first match was set in Manchester Arena in June 2018. A fee of £30 was charged for a regular ticket and £495 for a VIP, and it was an instant sell-out.
From a business point of view, the organizer knew the money didn't flush in because the audience expected a textbook match. Instead, they just wanted to see two famous amateurs fighting.
There was also a pay-per-view live streaming on YouTube, selling for £7.5-£10.
In the end, Logan Paul and KSI split the profits 50-50, which was £75 million.
Even though their speed and form were pretty decent in the match, their performances were as good as any other typical amateur match.
However, in the final rounds, their hits were sloppy; consequently, the match ended in a draw.
But what was certain is that they were crazy rich after the match. The result was like it was inviting a rematch with another massive chunk of money.
It was Logan Paul's pivoting point. Afterwards, he became serious about martial arts. It was his new piggy bank. After the tied result in a match between him and KSI, they went on to a rematch in 2019, and even though he lost, it still made him a lot of money. His brother also followed his path. Recently in April 2021, he knocked out Ben Askren, an MMA fighter and a champion in two tournaments.
This path fits Logan's life well because he was = on the university's wrestling team before he started doing YouTube. As a result, he would always stay fit. An anonymous source said he was a strong guy and was one of the lead wrestlers at The Ohio State University.
He was earnest about his comeback to martial arts. He said that he had been on a special diet. He had been eating 80lbs daily and drinking cow's blood daily to improve his physique. "I cut out all pasta, bread, and dairy from my diet and make sure I drink at least 2.5 gallons of water daily," said Logan Paul.
Every day he would go to the gym at nine in the morning and train with Shannon Briggs, former WBO heavyweight champion.
Crazy money in a fight
The match between Logan Paul and Floyd Mayweather in late 2020 was solely for money. Hence his alias, The Money, Floyd, has never fought with anybody and didn't get decent pay. In the last three to four years, he had announced his retirement and only fought in a big money match like his fight with Conor McGregor and Tenshin Nasukawa, in which he made US$120 million.
"These YouTube girls better find some Barbie dolls to play with 'cause I'm not the one for the kid games.'"
"Three years ago, a fighter from the UFC said my name and I had to put a muzzle on that b**ch. Logan Paul can get the same treatment before I conquer Japan again.," tweeted Floyd after accepting Paul's challenge.
No one has to guess the match's outcome even though Logan Paul weighs 86 kilograms while Floyd only weighs around 70 kilograms.
Still, how could an amateur like Logan Paul, who has been training for only three years, defeat the world champion who has been fighting throughout his life?
But what was even more interesting was the detail of the match. Floyd will be earning more profit than in his last fight with Nasukawa due to the revenue from pay-per-view streaming which cost around US$24.99 and sold for more than one million views after only a few days from the match's announcement.
Afterwards, the price was upped to $39.99, $59.99, and $69.99, even only a few days before the fight.
This is a fight between the most hated YouTuber and the most hated boxing champion, and audiences eagerly awaited one of them to get hit in the face.
They were there only for pure entertainment.
"None of this is comprehensible. This makes no f****** sense. My manager, (this) is months ago, comes up to me, he says, 'Logan, would you fight Floyd Mayweather? I go, 'I mean yes, I would, but why are you asking me that question?'."
"Like go do something else. This makes no sense. How is that going to be a thing ever? I think a month later. He approached me with a contract. He said, 'If you sign here, you're going to be fighting Floyd Mayweather. I said, 'Sure, Jeff, I'll sign your fantasy contract. Like f*** you, why would this ever happen?'," he said.
He admitted that he wasn't afraid of losing. Instead, he was more fearful of not having a chance to hit the world champion in the face.
It didn't matter if he won or lost. It was a valuable experience. Apart from the money he would receive, not everybody has the chance to fight with Floyd.
He learned from his mistakes that it was an opportunity for him to make more money which he succeeded in and gained more money than ever.
The result didn't matter because he knew he would walk away with $20 million in his pocket when it was all said and done.
Source
https://www.givemesport.com/1629733-logan-paul-vs-floyd-mayweather-pauls-secrets-behind-incredible-body-transformation
https://www.sportskeeda.com/mma/news-how-many-subscribers-logan-paul-have-is-youtuber-popular-floyd-mayweather
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/13513252/logan-paul-amazing-body-transformation-floyd-mayweather/
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/boxing/floyd-mayweather-logan-paul-fight-when-weight-stream-b1769207.html
