De La Hoya Blasts Hearn’s “YouTube Fighters”

In 2019 Eddie Hearn signed YouTubers/rivals/amateur boxers KSI and Logan Paul to fight as professionals for the first time for a card inside Staples Center.

The card featured world champions Devin Haney and Billy Joe Saunders as supporting players for the two vloggers, opening the door to a potential new audience for boxing.

Oscar De La Hoya, the guy who attempted to start his own MMA promotion without knowing the names of some of his own fighters, has come after Hearn’s decision to continue working with digital stars, as Logan’s brother Jake will fight next week against KSI’s teammate AnEsonGib.

“I’m from the old school breed and boxing is so dangerous and real that a lot of these YouTube guys are thinking that it’s a joke,” De La Hoya told Fight Hub TV (Transcribed by Boxing Scene). “It’s not a joke. This is real stuff. I mean this is life or death inside that ring.

“To become world champion is not easy. People put their lives on the line sometimes and so to make it kind of like a circus act is not pretty cool at all. It’s entertainment but it’s serious.”

“Just a bit. It really does [degrade boxing]. I put all my life into this for somebody to come [into the sport] because he wants to fight, it just really doesn’t make sense to me,” De La Hoya said just over a year after running Golden Boy MMA, which featured mostly regional fighters and Tito Ortiz facing Chuck Liddell in the latter’s first fight in over a decade.