Controversial social media star Andrew Tate was once a world champion kickboxer, and could be set for a return to fighting against either Logan or Jake Paul.
The TikTok sensation doesn't even have his own account, but has already been viewed over 11billion times on the platform with clips of his YouTube videos, podcast appearances and live streams constantly going viral. He is now being touted as a potential boxing opponent for the Paul brothers, having already had a lengthy combat sports career.
Tate trained under coach Amir Subasic at the Storm Gym in his hometown of Luton after moving from America in his youth when his parents were divorced. He claims to have a kickboxing record of 43-9, with 1-0 records in both amateur and professional MMA including a victory over future UFC star Luke Barnatt.
While it is unclear how many kickboxing matches Tate had, he was a four-time world champion in ISKA kick-boxing, while Mirror Fighting understands that by May 2012 his MMA record actually stood at 2-1 as an amateur, 1-1 as a semi-professional and 1-0 as a professional.
During an interview with The Fellas podcast earlier this year, Tate claimed he was only knocked out cold once during his career. This is the well-publicised defeat to Franci Grajs at Enfusion 3 in 2012, but he was also unable to beat the count when he was knocked out by Scott Gibson early in his career during a little-known 2007 bout.
Gibson fought Tate for the British light-heavyweight title on April 14, 2007, stopping the American-born fighter in the fourth round with an overhand right. Golden Belt sanctioned the event, which was one of Tate's first fights and admittedly by his coach a massive step up at that point of his career.
It was the first of only two particularly bad knockout losses in his lengthy career, with the next coming five years later in the Enfusion Trial of the Gladiators contest. He won his semi-final bout by knockout with a head-kick, before taking on local fighter Grajs in the final in Ljubljana.
After a tough first round, Grajs got Tate against the ropes where he landed a number of big knees, and ultimately combined a series of punches with a devastating knockout knee to seal the victory. The prize for the bout was the Enfusion 85kg championship and $30,000, which Tate ultimately didn't miss as he would go on to amass a net worth believed to be around $100million.
"I've always tried my best," Tate said in the dressing room after the loss. "I fight lots of different disciplines, boxing, kick-boxing, MMA, etc. That means that sometimes you make a few mistakes in one discipline that you get away with in others.
"I hit too low with my punches and I got caught. Fair play to him, I'm not going to take anything away from him and I'm gracious in defeat. I hope he enjoys it and I'd fight him any chance I get, of course. I'm a warrior but I'm only here for one thing so I'll let him have his moment in the sun and I won't discredit him in any way."
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Throughout his world championship kick-boxing career, Tate was only stopped three times. He retired in 2016 having won four titles, while Gibson continued fighting with less success, and was briefly romantically linked with popstar Kerry Katona.
He was stopped within a round by Ibrahim El Boustati in 2016, and despite taking a few more smaller bouts, he was all but done with the sport at the top level. Since then, his star has risen through his controversial brand of self-help advice and opinions on male-female relationship dynamics.
The social media star briefly made a comeback to the ring in 2020 when he stopped Cosmin Lingurar in the second round. He is now being touted as a future opponent for one of the Paul brothers, who have both vowed to stop him within one round.
Reflecting on his loss to Grajs years later on The Fellas podcast, Tate said: "I've been knocked out cold once. Only once in 87 fights, which is good for a career. I wouldn't say it hurts - you don't remember much, it's much like a dream and you're furious afterwards."
