Before meeting his wife Katie, Josh Brueckner was a local MMA fighter in Michigan who only used social media to shift tickets for small shows.
Fast forward six years, and he’s hung up his 4oz gloves in favour of a family life, as well as just under 10million fans across social media. He and his wife welcomed their first daughter Sky Mae last year after building a YouTube and TikTok following during their six year relationship.
But Brueckner has maintained his fighting spirit, and is now returning to combat in the boxing ring as he pursues the Misfits Boxing cruiserweight title. He has signed up for a three-fight tournament where his first round matchup sees him face Thomas Oliveira, better known as Faze Temperrr.
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Josh Brueckner details how he went from rising MMA star to social media sensation
When he met his future wife Katie, Josh Brueckner was still pursuing his career as a Mixed Martial Artist, and would finish up at 4-2 as a professional following an unbeaten amateur run. His last fight came just weeks after they had first run into each other, and he instead opted to pursue social media.
The pair introduced the world to ‘Jatie Vlogs’, where they developed a fanbase. There was an already-growing set of over a million subscribers that Katie had been building before meeting Josh, but the pair’s chemistry instantly clicked with audiences and he decided to make that his priority.
“I wasn’t a big social media guy,” he explained during an exclusive chat with Bloody Elbow. “I grew up in Michigan, I feel like that was six or seven years ago and social media wasn’t what it is now so I would just use whatever platform I had to try and sell tickets locally.
“I would get a percentage of ticket sales and then I worked at a boutique boxing gym where I had a bunch of clients that would take classes and I sold tickets to them there. I just used social media to try and promote my MMA fights and at the time that was the goal; be a big MMA fighter.
“But you’ve always got to pivot in life and now here we are. I don’t think that the MMA game is a very lucrative business unless you can pivot and do something [else], or you’re like Conor McGregor or something.
“I don’t think the lifespan of an MMA fighter was going to be that long for me anyway. It was my sixth pro fight and I was already kind of looking for something else, I was realising that I wouldn’t get paid that much money to do this and it was a lot of work.
“I was kind of already pivoting and then I met Katie and it was perfect timing, we started doing our own thing and that took off.”
Josh Brueckner’s career has come full circle after meeting wife Katie at boxing gym
In a fascinating turn of events, Josh and Katie Brueckner met when she came in with friends to try a class at the Michigan boxing gym where he was teaching. She described in a 2018 video that she saw a profile of his on the gym’s website, and was determined to take one of his classes.
Just over a year later, Josh had made his return to fighting on the undercard of KSI vs Logan Paul 2 in California. And during his post-fight interview, he got down on one knee and proposed in one of the night’s viral moments.
“It was kind of a full circle moment because I actually met my wife at the boxing gym where I was teaching,” he said. “Then I stopped fighting to do YouTube but we ended up getting engaged at a YouTube fight that I fought on.
“My dream when I was younger when I was 17 or 18 and training MMA was to be fighting in front of big crowds and putting on shows for a lot of people and now I’m headlining in Misfits and that’s an opportunity to fight in front of big crowds and do exactly what I wanted to do.
“It’s not MMA like I had planned, it’s boxing, but it’s full circle for me and that’s cool. YouTube and boxing have always kind of collided for us, and when I fought at the Staples Center it was the same thing where YouTube and boxing were colliding.”
Josh Brueckner names KSI as dream fight ahead of Misfits Boxing return
The world’s of YouTube and boxing will again collide for Brueckner on August 10 at the James L Knight Centre in Miami. He and Faze Temperrr will square off in the opening round of a cruiserweight tournament which began earlier this year as Le’Veon Bell defeated Tristan Hamm.
Before the launch of the tournament, YouTube boxing’s biggest star KSI vacated his cruiserweight belt, allowing for the eight-man bracket to be put together. The winner on August 10 will face either DTG or Minikon, while Bell will take on the winner of Love Islander Jake Cornish’s scrap with Mike Edwards.
But Brueckner has eyes on even bigger fights, and named KSI as his ultimate dream matchup in the boxing space. “When these fight opportunities come about I do think about myself,” he added.
“I’m 29-years-old and how cool is it to be the main event of a card in Miami that’s going to be live on DAZN. It’s a huge show, it’s a big opportunity to fight in a tournament. I look at my younger self and think ‘imagine if I turned that down’. Then I think about myself at 40 or 50 and I feel like I’ll have a great story.”
Josh Brueckner and Faze Temperrr headlines the Misfits and DAZN X Series in Miami, Florida on August 10.
Tickets for X Series 16 in Miami on August 10 are available now from Ticketmaster, while fans at home can watch live on DAZN.
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