Floyd Mayweather has confirmed he will fight YouTube star Deji in Dubai on November 13 in the latest stop on his post-retirement world tour.
After Mirror Fighting revealed talks were well underway , Mayweather has now confirmed the fight will take place later this year. He will first take on Mikuru Asakura in Japan in the main event of a Rizin show on Sunday which will feature MMA and kick-boxing, before turning his attentions to Deji in Dubai.
"I have an exhibition with a hell of a fighter from Japan," Mayweather told TMZ. "He's big in [MMA] and he's also big on YouTube. Then I have one with the guy Deji; we will be doing an exhibition in Dubai at the Coca-Cola Arena; and that's in November." The show will include a star-studded line-up including Love Island winner Jack Fincham, Nigel Benn's son Harley Benn and former Bellator star Anthony Taylor.
YouTube star Deji, brother of KSI, has looked a different fighter since joining up with coach Daley Perales, and earned this huge-money fight with one of boxing's best ever fighters when he defeated Yusef 'Fousey' Erakat in August. Mayweather retired from professional boxing in 2017 after stopping Conor McGregor to go 50-0 in an iconic career. He has since taken on a number of exhibition bouts that don't go on his professional record, and not scored, meaning there is no winner or loser.
The legendary fighter's retirement tour began in 2018 when he travelled to Japan to face kick-boxer Tenshin Nasukawa. Mayweather was considerably bigger and completely mauled the young fighter on route to a first round knockout, before taking an extended break.
He has already been to Dubai's Coca-Cola Arena earlier this year, where he dominated former sparring partner Don Moore in a farcical showing. At times he stopped fighting to speak to the commentary team, and even danced around with the ring cards between rounds, all in a brutalising performance where he dropped Moore but was unable to finish the fight.
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It came after he had flirted with complete retirement following a tough outing against Logan Paul in a June 2021 bout at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. The fight reportedly sold over one million pay-per-views in America, and Mayweather couldn't overcome the 35lb weight difference to knock out Paul, meaning a moral victory for the YouTuber.
However, he is now back in action against Deji, who is one of the most beloved social media stars in the UK. His brother KSI is also a YouTuber as well as a chart-topping rapper, and they both scored stoppage finishes in August at The O2 arena in London.
