Cuddly KSI … boxing’s version of The Emperor’s New Clothes

KSI (Olajide Olayinka Williams) and Tommy Fury exchange punches during the Misfits Cruiserweight fight at AO Arena in Manchester, (Photo by Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

Picture the scene. A crisp October fight night in Manchester, the city that gave us Benn vs Eubank 2, at the venue which hosted both Hatton vs Tszyu and the first Froch vs Groves.

A near-20,000 sellout crowd are there to watch Tommy Fury v KSI – or what best can be described as boxing’s latest fad, with another 1.5million PPV subscribers paying £20 sat at home.

Over 150 years ago Abraham Lincoln put it succinctly when he uttered his immortal quote “You can fool some of the people all of the time...”

Part of me says hats off to the promoters, they make PT Barnum look like Manchester’s very own Roy Cropper when it comes to selling a show. But on the flip side what is this actually doing to the credibility of professional boxing in Great Britain?

At this point I have to declare an interest... my daughter Amy was a contestant with Tommy Fury on Love island, he’s a decent lad and I cannot blame him in some ways for taking advantage of the money currently being thrown around in this sporting genre.

That said, he’s fighting six rounds against – effectively – a Youtuber/energy drink retailer, KSI. Fun fact re the ‘epic’ six rounder... KSI held an average of 18 times each round, so if the bottom ever falls out of social media or energy drinks he could set up a celebrity cuddling service.

But boxing wise was the content over the whole evening more akin to the WWE than the British Boxing Board of Control? To me the answer is a resounding yes.

To call this professional boxing is a bit like pulling a centre forward out of parks football and putting him up front for Tottenham.

If you took the majority of the 20,000 back in a time machine they’d probably label Big Daddy and Giant Haystack’s Cup final showdown clash in 1981 as credible!

So we know who the winners in all this are, the promoters, broadcaster and the ‘combatants’ at the top of the bill.

But who are the losers? British mainstream boxing? Every fighter licensed with the British Boxing Board of Control?

Very much so, the only consolation is that this will become yet another passing craze, think of it like the hula hoop, the Sinclair C5 or even Spacedust.

The non boxing masses will move on when their attention span wanes, and hopefully before too much damage has been done to ‘the noble art’ in this country?