​KSI Challenges Logan Paul To Fight In Manchester This August

Just over a month from his last fight with Joe Weller, YouTube star KSI has announced his next rival: Logan Paul, the YouTuber who's never been one to shy away from controversy.

KSI confirmed the fight in a YouTube video released today:

The fight will take place on 25 August at Manchester Arena in the UK, and will be a pay-per-view event.

On Wednesday 14 March, KSI tweeted to say that a big announcement about the forthcoming fight would be made at the weekend, saying:

But fans had already been quick to speculate about who his mystery competitor could be, with the disgraced internet personality top of the wish list - not too far-fetched an idea, given that KSI called Paul out during his victory speech after his recent fight with fellow vlogger and bitter rival Joe Weller.

The two then fuelled a lot of fire to the rumours, setting up beef over on Twitter over the past few days.

However, Paul's brother Jake - also a YouTuber, because who isn't these days? -threw a curveball when he suggested that KSI take on their dad.

He also added that he and Logan would pay KSI $50,000 (£36,000) for going ahead with it.

For his last fight, KSI faced off with Joe Weller at the Copper Box Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in February in a fight that amassed over 20 million views across the two YouTube streams - with six million views on Weller's channel and a whopping 15 million on KSI's.

According to Business Insider, even the best-selling pay-per-view fight events don't even come close. The Floyd Mayweather v Conor McGregor boxing match in August last year only had 6.7 million PPV buys, while Floyd Mayweather's fight with Manny Pacquiao in 2015 had 4.6 million. The iconic Evander Holyfield v Mike Tyson match in 1997 (yep, the one where Tyson bit Hoyfield's ear), meanwhile, had just 1.99 million PPV buys.

KSI (real name Olajide William Olatunji) has over 18 million subscribers and almost 4 million Twitter followers, and has been uploading videos to his YouTube channel since 2009.

His content is mostly focused on gaming and football, but he's also branched out into music with a series of popular football rap battles, having also worked with the likes of P Money and Big Zuu.

Paul, on the other hand, is most known for a controversial and insensitive video in which he visited the 'suicide forest' in Japan, the dense forest area at the base of Mt Fuji is a commonly-used spot for people to take their own lives.

The 22-year-old vlogger - who has almost 17 million YouTube subscribers and over 4 million followers on Twitter - came across an actual dead body and decided to include footage of the victim in his final edit, which has now been taken down on YouTube.