Sam Hyde has stolen the show during this week's KSI vs Swarmz build-up, but he will be done with boxing if political streamer Hasan Piker won't fight him.
Hyde has regaled fans with his wacky 'Candyman' persona throughout the week, leaving KSI in hysterics during the pre-fight press conference as he burst into poetry. He faces Australian Tik Tok star Jordan 'THMPSN' Thompson tonight, and is hoping to land a massive knockout to cement a return to the general public's consciousness that is six years in the making.
His ultimate goal is to finally illicit a response from Piker; a left-wing content creator whose abrasive style of arguing his points has irked many, including Hyde. He believes the streamer, who has never publicly acknowledged his many callouts, doesn't want to offer the controversial comedian his platform of millions of followers.
But with KSI and DAZN backing his debut, the shoe may be on the other foot with Hyde set to fight in front of a massive pay-per-view audience and around 20,000 fans at The O2 arena. However, if Piker isn't interested, then he's unlikely to continue training intensively, and plans to price himself out of future fights.
"I want to murder Hasan Piker," Hyde said in an out-of-character chat with Mirror Fighting on the eve of his debut. "I think that I can legally do it and this is the road to doing that - if he doesn't take notice he's the biggest p**** in the world.
"There's no way because the whole thing was 'I don't want to platform him'. Well guess what f***er? KSI's platforming me, you dumb b**** so now you have to say something. But he's not going to say anything because he'll see what I do in there and he'll know that it's not for him.
"I think he's going to fight, though. I heard he's doing Creator Clash 2 [IDubbbz charity boxing event] possibly, that'd be some funny s***, he looks like s***."
Despite being linked in the past to the alt-right, Hyde tries to veer away from expressly wading into political waters. And he claims that it isn't so much Piker's outspoken leftist politics that have caused his hatred for the streamer as much as his attitude and general demeanour.
"I just hate him," he continued. "His politics are a dime a dozen, I don't give a f*** about his politics, I hate him. I want to kill him, it's literally because he wears a pukka-shell necklace. It's just when you lock eyes with somebody and you know, genetically, that you're programmed to be their enemy.
"Do you ever see people with deep-set alligator eyes? You know that they're a criminal; 'I know you're a criminal because your eyes are deep in your head and I know you're going to commit crime', there's just some people where you go 'I'm your genetic enemy somehow, we are destined to do battle,' that's what I see when I see Hasan Piker.
"This is the hardest work, I'm not doing pro boxer camp where you work out twice a day and do running, your calisthenics and your other s*** where you're in there six hours a day, I'm not doing that. Even what I'm doing at age 37 is wicked hard, I'm all set, [fighting] is not for me, hell no.
"If they offered me enough money, I would do it. But the amount that I would need would be so much that it just wouldn't make sense for them [Misfits Boxing] to do."
Hyde has always had a cult following online for his often edgy humour, which is wildly offensive to certain viewers. His comedy troupe Million Dollar Extreme had their mainstream break in 2016 when they were commissioned to make a show called 'World Peace' in 2016, but the endeavour was short-lived.
Ratings were reportedly solid, and executives were happy with the direction of the show, despite the sketches occasionally dancing on the line between what is and isn't acceptable. But a slew of bad press for Hyde stemming from his association with far right politics ultimately made them untenable, and he has been essentially blacklisted from the industry since.
He and fellow MDE cast-mate Nick Rochefort stuck to their guns and continued to make content together online. But Charls Carroll, their third member and close friend before comedy fame, decided not to continue working with them leaving their personal relationship to fall to the wayside.
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"We were [really close]," he said, before admitting that the shows cancellation likely had an effect on their friendship. "But people move in and out of your life and that's just life."
Now, Hyde has a new set of mainstream eyeballs on him thanks to KSI, a YouTube star who is also known for gracing the covers of magazines and landing in the music charts as well as attracting millions of viewers a day online, and boxing broadcaster DAZN. He has been embraced by the YouTube boxing public, as well as fans who have been introduced to him through standard boxing media.
"It's the fight game and as long as you don't have a swastika tattooed on your chest you go and do your s*** and prove it, that's all people care about," Hyde explained. "They're definitely not reading clickbait articles about 'whose a bad person, why should I care about which person was bad this week?' They're not reading that s***, they're just watching fights, it's a better calibre of entertainment.
"Those people [in comedy] are all dead, they're all a joke. Saturday Night Live? I have the Instagram handle SNL, I own you, you're f***ing dead, you suck. They're not making anything funny, those people are all just riding out the decline of their industry. There are very few people like Louis CK or Shane Gillis that are doing actual funny s***, they're just riding out the decline and doing what?"
But does he miss the comedy world? "Hell no, hell no. The funny thing is we were locked into a six-year contract at Adult Swim for $80,000 a year, roughly and that's not worth it. I know that probably it would have ultimately been worth it to stay on TV, but those guys at Adult Swim make money from advertising, which is why you see Eric Andre in Verizon commercials, because he has to be.
"You want to concentrate on making your show, that's what lives forever, the TV show. That's what people will watch if you're good enough. They're not going to remember your live show where you do noises, but you have to do it if you're on Adult Swim because they won't pay you."
Ultimately, Hyde is now set to continue his usual comedic endeavours online, while launching first a collection of NFTs and then a video game. And he is thankful to the likes of KSI, whose reach in conventional media is the kind of thing thought to be long gone when his TV show was taken off the air after just six episodes.
"Keem [Daniel Keem, known online as Keemstar] went to bat for me, picked me up and was willing to put me out there," he explained of how he ended up on a potentially record-breaking PPV event. "That was kind of crazy for him, but somehow we made it through.
"Thanks to Keemstar and Yusef [Fousey], as well as KSI, obviously. I'm sure KSI knows what the story is and he's letting me be on this card. So thanks to those guys for putting me on the card and letting me be here. This is extremely, much more hype than anything I would have seen in Hollywood."
