Ever since the likes of Jake Paul came into the boxing scene, the combat sports world has changed forever. The phenomena that began with the Paul vs AnEsonGib match has now seen NBA players, Youtubers, and former UFC fighters battle it out. All this drama has surely benefitted combat sports in general, but it has also raised quite a few questions.
In 2018, KSI and Michael Bisping came together to see a promotional video for the third installment in UFC’s official video game: EA Sports UFC 3. The two Brits got into a friendly sparring session which was also recorded on camera. Throughout the whole video, Bisping has seen ragdolling KSI around like a punching bag and applying different submission moves like it was nothing!
Recently the sparring session footage was released by ESPN MMA which quickly sparked a lot of conversation among combat sports enthusiasts.
Why is this footage significant?
The new breed of youtube turned boxers have not been very respectful to combat athletes across all sports. Jake and Logan Paul have reportedly called out and insulted many big-name fighters.
Fans who are familiar with the duo wrote the whole thing off as another publicity stunt, but many fighters didn’t share the same sentiment.
Logan lost his bout against KSI in a split decision and ‘scored’ a draw against Floyd Mayweather. Jake, on the other hand, picked up 2 wins against former Welterweight champ Tyron Woodley, 1 win against Ben Askren, and 1 win against middleweight legend Anderson Silva.
Many questioned Floyd’s dedication to his fight against Logan. On the other hand, Jake’s match against Ben Askren and KO against Woodley were deemed awfully suspicious. The biggest accusation came against him during the Anderson Silva fight where Silva dropped without any significant contact with Jake’s glove.
From the KSI vs Bisping footage, we can safely conclude that in a real-life fight situation or in an MMA fight, real UFC fighters would probably murder these YouTube turned fighters. People like Jake avoid fighting proper fighters in proper events seemingly because they can’t manipulate the odds in their favor.
