KSI has admitted he is deliberately pushing back his fight with Jake Paul after falling back in love with boxing during his comeback.
The British YouTube star has a long-standing rivalry with his American counterpart, dating back before he fought his older brother Logan in a 2018 white-collar bout and a 2019 rematch. And KSI expects the pair will get in the ring together next year, even though he is delaying the fight.
He insists he will hang up the gloves once the Paul fight happens, but he also claims that he is enjoying the process of boxing so much that he doesn't want it to end. As such, he wants to hold off on fighting his biggest rival as long as he can so he can continue to improve in the sport.
"For me, it's always about being able to improve," he said at a press conference today. "It's crazy, I remember when I was a kid I'd do cross country and I hated it, I hated running, I thought it was the worst thing ever and I always tried to get to a point where teachers wouldn't see me so I could take shortcuts and that.
"Whereas now I love it, I love running and beating my 5k or 10k times. I love being able to beat my 400metre sprint time, being able to do longer rounds in sparring, being able to fight more than one person in sparring and always just be better. For me I hate getting injured because I feel it slows down my progress and I'm a progress-driven person.
"I think it gives me purpose, and for me, that's it. I definitely lost my purpose and lost my way a bit and felt very empty, whereas now I feel so fulfilled and good about my life and therapy has helped tremendously as well as having purpose in my life. For me, making sure I break Dillon Danis' face on January 14 is giving me so much joy."
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And he feels that his journey in the sport will end with a fight against Paul, meaning that he likely wouldn't continue training at his current intensity. KSI has struggled with his weight in the past, and feels that he is enjoying his current progress physically too much to fight Paul right away and end his fighting career.
"Then it's breaking the next person and the next person and eventually getting to Jake Paul and destroying everything that he's built," he added. "I think it's going to be fantastic... I could fight Jake middle of next year if I wanted to, I was definitely offered to, but I said 'nah' because I'm enjoying this too much.
"I don't know if that's kind of weird, I just didn't expect to be so obsessed with being able to improve so much. I think I'm on a level where I'm able to keep going and keep going way further than I thought. It's crazy, I never thought I'd ever be able to do a 5k in under 20 minutes and now I'm breezing past that, now that's nothing.
"To know that I could just go further beyond, I think it's just sick and I don't really want to end it so quick because I know once I fight Jake it's done. I've no interest to do anything else boxing-wise, so I don't know why I'd want to end it so quickly, I'm just enjoying the journey too much."
