KSI, Logan Paul's Financial Success Proves They're Better Promoters Than UFC: Schaub

Brendan Schaub believes the financial success of the boxing match between YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul on Saturday only further proves promoting isn't as hard as UFC president Dana White makes it seem.

According to reports, around 20,000 fans were in attendance at the Manchester Arena while 773,000 people paid $10 to stream the pay-per-view event on YouTube. KSI recently claimed in addition to the uCast stream, the whole event did over 1 million pay-per-view buys.

Business Insider, meanwhile, estimated the event bagged up to $11 million in total. And with the fight ending in a draw, there is even more money to be made with the rematch planned for the United States.

Whatever, the official figures are, the event was a massive success and was certainly the biggest combat sports event of a weekend that also included UFC Lincoln later that night.

For Schaub, it just goes to show promoting is not that difficult.

"I loved what they are doing because they are showing how easy it is to promote a fight!" the former UFC heavyweight said on his "Below the Belt" podcast, as per MMA Fighting. "When everyone goes, ‘Being a promoter is so difficult.’ Really? These kids have zero background! They both decided, ‘Hey, we both have a following,’ and they did it all their own."

"I’m sure they lined up with some help to acquire the arena and get the ticket sales and all that, but for the most part two famous guys showed you how easy it is to promote and sell a fight. It is not rocket science. No one is skilled at doing this. We give way too much respect to these promoters. They are not that skilled. It’s very obvious who should be fighting, what fight to make, how to build a fight."

Schaub was undoubtedly taking a shot at White, particularly as the latter feels it is up to the fighter to promote themselves. The UFC have struggled with pay-per-view buys without their cash-cows like Conor McGregor and Brock Lesnar, both of whom will be returning to action soon.

In fact, without the likes of McGregor, Lesnar, Georges St-Pierre or Jon Jones, no pay-per-view since the start of 2017 has exceeded 500,000 buys.

"When a fight does not sell, that’s when you realize how s--tty a promoter is," Schaub explained. "Whenever there’s two headline UFC fighters, both those guys are so f--king talented it’s not even funny. For those fights not to sell should not rely on a fighter. That’s where a promoter or the marketing business of the UFC, or name whatever boxing promoter you want, should come into play. It is not the responsibility of them. Them being the fighters."

"For these two guys with zero background to s--t on any UFC fight this year, numbers-wise, shows you how poorly of a job the UFC is doing at times and how easy it is to promote a fight."

The success of the KSI vs. Paul fight may even persuade the Las Vegas-based promotion to sign the latter, according to Schaub. It wouldn't be the first time they signed someone with next to no experience in combat sports (like CM Punk) either.

"People want to hate on these, tell me how this is any different than the UFC signing CM Punk? I will wait...," Schaub added. "Again, you’re going down a tricky road because someone in the UFC offices is watching going, ‘That Logan Paul looked pretty good. How much does he weigh?'"

"You’re bats--t crazy if you don’t think in the UFC office this morning someone went, ‘We’re just spit-balling ideas here, did anyone see the Logan Paul fight? He didn’t look terrible! What numbers did they do? Better than any card we’ve had this year. Should we sign him?’ I guarantee there’s a spark interest of signing Logan Paul to the UFC."