It’s is hard to know where to start and where to end when talking about the Misfits boxing circus on Saturday night in Manchester.
There is an image of little Tommy Fury avoiding the lunges of Eddie Hall, with his 80 inch chest, and of Big Stacks, the “Hardest Man in Britain”, turning away after four rounds of body sparring, or perhaps the moment when the rapper, Jordan McCann, got hit for the first time and also turned away in utter confusion. Take your pick.
It was crude, ugly, shameful in parts, but addictive in all sorts of ways. A crowd of nearly 20,000 left throwing wild punches, laughing and vowing to return. Misfits, the business, knows its audience.
Fury’s real boxing experience was more than enough to beat Hall; it was rudimentary, but it was enough. The Stacks and McCann fights were ridiculous – it has to be said. It is not a criticism, just a fact: all four of the men in involved would have struggled to win a fight at the Haringey Box Cup, which took place over the same weekend.
Big Stacks is also known as Charlie Roberts and is perhaps best known as the self-proclaimed “Hardest Man in Britain”. Now, that is a serious title and Stacks, thankfully, has a sense of humour; I hope he does. His fight with Armz Korleone – the best name of the weekend – was nearly called off when McCann slapped Stacks at the press conference. The slap caused a cut, there were stitches, the doctors said “no fight”, a deal was done for the pair to hit each other to the body. It was dismal; Stacks, who claimed he was out all night, saved himself in the fourth. The rematch is coming soon.
McCann was fighting the viral sensation, Ibiza Final Boss (his real name is Jack Kay); you will know him as the man with the odd haircut, dancing to music at clubs in Ibiza. Honest, that’s his fame; McCann threatened violence all week and then was hit after a few seconds and his body stiffened; he was, for a moment, out on his feet. He showed guts to stick with it; he found out that rapping about fighting and fighting are two very different vehicles. At the end of a thousand swings and four rounds, the man with the pudding-bowl haircut and immaculate teeth got the nod. The crowd loved it.
In another fight, a boxer called Anthony Taylor dropped to his knees in frustration, claiming a substance had been rubbed into his eyes. It was dramatic and then he raced at his opponent and tried to rugby tackle about ten men. It was not the first and it will not be the last chaotic end to a Misfits fight. The crowd came for the skirmishes and they know that Taylor, a serial offender, often delivers a bit of anarchy.
When Misfits started in 2022, with KSI as one of the founding members, it had a fresh quality, an innocence in some ways. It was not a threat to the real boxing business. The thinking at the time was that traditional boxing could learn from the influencers, learn about having a social media presence, learn about marketing. That was a convenient theory.
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On Saturday, Misfits pushed right up to the thin crossover line between boxing and the glory days of wrestling. It’s not a threat to boxing, but the carnival on Saturday was not very dignified. They might not be very good at boxing but they are still judged as boxers and so is the event. Great business, not a great image for the sport.
