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Liam O'Dell
Apr 13, 2023
Related video: Liam Payne credits One Direction bandmates with helping him through 'dark time'
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Former One Direction member Liam Payne had fans worried on Wednesday when the musician teased an announcement with fighter Tommy Fury which many feared would be a boxing match between the two of them.
It may sound bizarre that the ex-X Factor contestant wants to step inside the ring, but Payne has already expressed a desire to fight YouTuber-turned-boxer KSI at some point.
During an appearance on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcastin May last year, the singer was asked if he would fight the content creator – real name JJ Olatunji – to which he replied: “Yeah. He’d have to come down a few weight slots … I’ll fight him.”
KSI went on to ridicule Payne in a response video on his YouTube channel, branding his comments as “the least convincing ‘yeah’ I’ve ever seen in my life”.
“You don’t want to fight me,” he said, adding Payne “wouldn’t have a chance”.
It isn’t out of the ordinary for Payne to talk boxing, and so when he shared a poster to social media depicting him facing off against Fury, with news of an event taking place at Manchester’s Old Trafford “this summer”, speculation built up as to whether he would be putting on the gloves:
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\u201c@LiamPayne Tommy: I\u2019m going to rearrange your face\n\nLiam: [gleefully clapping] \ud83d\ude0c\u201d— Liam (@Liam) 1681315668
\u201c@LiamPayne The next album promo\u201d— Liam (@Liam) 1681315668
\u201csurely not\u201d— Eleanor Neale (@Eleanor Neale) 1681349304
\u201cTommy Fury if he doesn\u2019t remove his hands from liam payne (there\u2019s a high likelihood he\u2019ll never use them again)\u201d— thebikeseatsniffer (@thebikeseatsniffer) 1681326896
\u201ctommy fury with no hands after liam payne is done with him :\u201d— swaggyy soph (@swaggyy soph) 1681319324
\u201cTommy Fury and Liam Payne\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23\ud83e\udd23 Boxing is absolutely done for as a sport. Hasbulla is gonna be fighting Warwick Davis soon\u201d— grace olivia (@grace olivia) 1681316129
Despite all this, the actual announcement was something far more charitable, and actually related to Payne and Fury being on opposing teams for this year’s Soccer Aid charity football match in June.
Other celebrities taking part in the game for Unicef include Jill Scott (who captains the England side), Usain Bolt (who captains the ‘World’ team), Tom Grennan and Sir Mo Farah.
And if you’re wondering what the hand memes refer to, in the same episode of Logan Paul’s podcast, Payne revealed there was once “an argument backstage and one member, in particular, threw me up a wall”.
He added: “So I said to him, ‘if you don’t remove those hands, there’s a high likelihood you’ll never use them again.’”
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