I’m writing this while looking at the fight card and fighter profiles for Social Gloves: No More Talk for the first time. Already, I can tell, I’ve heard of like two people here so don’t expect any in-depth analysis on what any of these ‘fighters’ bring to the table.
Last year Social Gloves: YouTube vs. TikTok was a big hit for internet traffic. But not for us. It went under our radar. Our staff are all far too old to know what a TikTok is so we didn’t cover it and we missed out on all those sweet sweet clicks. But we aren’t being caught sleeping this time around!
So here is a post that hopes to siphon off some of the incoming traffic that might be garnered by the inexplicably massive following some of these characters have accumulated online.
The main event for this one features AnEson Gib. He’s the first guy who fought Jake Paul. I know this because I have had to pump out dozens of Jake Paul articles since ‘The Problem Child’ started pulling in traffic (with his KO of former NBA Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson) in 2020.
If I remember correctly—not looking it up—Paul fought Gib on the undercard of his brother Logan’s first fight with KSI. I think Gib is a friend or somehow affiliated with KSI, who I think is a streamer (?). I don’t know what Gib does other than that.
He’s fighting Austin McBroom, who has a hilarious surname. The page for this event on Fite.TV calls both Gib and McBroom ‘social media superstars’. I’m looking him up and it appears he is 30 years old and has over 6 million followers on Instagram. His tagline on Instagram says “my next fight – September 10th” so I assume he has done this before.
Here’s a hype video I’m not going to watch.
The co-main event has Nick Young aka Swaggy P. And I legitimately know who he is, thanks to watching basketball (go Raptors). The 37-year-old Young went from being a Shaqtin’ regular in his younger career, spent with the Washington Wizards and LA Lakers, to a pretty serviceable vet. In his late career he was a reliable shooter off the bench and in 2018 he won an NBA championship with the Golden State Warriors.
If you’re not a basketball fan, chances are you’ve still seen Young’s face. He’s this guy:
He was supposed to fight someone called Blueface. But Blueface dropped out, for some reason. Replacing him is Minikon who appears to be a TikTok person.
The other athletes on the card are former NFL players Le’veon Bell and Adrian Peterson who are fighting in ‘the battle of the running backs’. I don’t know hand-egg, and I’ll hate the sport forever for poaching Mookie Alexander from us, but I have heard of Peterson. I remember him being pretty good (I think?). I also remember him being part of a scandal involving allegations of hitting his child with a switch.
I better look that up or else legal will be big mad. Ok, so he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of recklessly endangering his son, avoiding a jail sentence and instead undergoing 80 hours of community service.
Looks like Peterson has had a few legal issues. In 2018 he was ordered to pay a creditor $2.4 million after defaulting on a loan. That year he was also sued for failing to pay a $5.2 million loan. Peterson was ordered to pay a settlement, but defaulted on that. So the New York State Supreme Court ordered him to pay that creditor $8.3 million instead. Yikes. I guess that’s why he’s here. Sorry dude, not going to make that money back in combat sports.
This February Peterson was charged with domestic violence after an incident on a flight from Los Angeles to Houston. The incident forced the plane to return to the gate and Peterson to be removed from the plane. Those charges were dropped after Peterson’s wife vouched that they were having a verbal argument and that Peterson did not strike her during the incident.
I scanned Bell’s wikipedia page and there doesn’t seem to be much interesting stuff there, other than he releases music under the stage name ‘Juice’.
Just going to whip through these last few names because, why not?
Landon McBroom has to be a relation of the guy in the main event, probably a brother. He’s fighting Adam Saleh — I’ll look him up. 1.5 million followers on Instagram. Might be a musician.
The event opens with Cory Wharton vs. Chase Demoor. Wharton was a cast member on Real World: Ex-Plosion. Demoor is a “digital creator” according to his Instagram who once played in the NFL, CFL and USFL.
So there you go. If you’re desperate to watch more fights after the UFC and BKFC events are over, you can stay up very late and watch these hobbyists throw down.
Full fight card
Austin McBroom vs. AnEson Gib
Nick Young vs. Minicon
Le’veon Bell vs. Adrian Peterson
Landon McBroom vs. Adam Saleh
Cory Wharton vs. Chase Demoor
You can watch this event (if you really like sloppy boxing and wannabe celebs) on fite.tv, The attempt at action starts at 11PM ET and costs $34.99. If you are desperate to spend that kind of money on this please at least use this affiliate link so your favorite online karate mag can get a little piece of the pie.