Violence is never the answer, until it is… and that moment arrived spectacularly for ‘influencer boxer’ Nurideen Shabazz this week not once, but twice in 24 hours after the attention-hungry Youtuber discovered what ‘F*ck Around And Find Out’ (FAFO) really means.
Shabazz, who goes by the self-proclaimed title ‘Deen the Great’ despite having no boxing talent and even less experience, found himself at the centre of social media headlines this week, after he was filmed being ‘slapped like a b*tch’ by hulking bodybuilder Larry Wheels.
Shabazz was at a private party and – as social media personalities are wont to do – streaming his Big Night Out to fans, when he decided to repeatedly sexually harass Wheels’ wife… in front of Wheels.
“His wife up for grabs,” Shabazz told the camera. “She smiling, she laughing….”
The pro-bodybuilder wasn’t, and warned Shabazz to stop multiple times. Shabazz kept going. And so Wheels eventually slapped Shabazz hard enough to knock him off his feet.
For context, Shabazz is five foot six inches tall and built like Woody from Toy Story (think ‘Kylie Minogue’ in stature). Wheels is 6’1”, and weighs 130kg. At 16 inches, his forearms are thicker than Shabazz’s legs (but not, apparently, his head).
The slap from Wheels looks like he’s swatting a mosquito, although the sound more closely resembles a Viking tenderising a Yak he’s just slaughtered with his bare hands for dinner.
As you can imagine, footage of the incident quickly went viral. It later shows an upset Shabazz remonstrating with a friend that he’s got his “strap” (gun) in the car, and is going to go and retrieve it. Presumably, shooting Wheels would only have made him angrier, so Shabazz really is the one who ultimately dodges a bullet.
In any event, Shabazz reportedly slunk home with his tiny tail between his bed and was tucked into bed by his Oompa Loompas… only to re-emerge defiant 24-hours later. Unfortunately, despite his very public humiliation, the slap from Wheels appears not to have knocked any sense into Shabazz, who decided to get right back onto the streaming horse, with the same winning attitude.
Round 2 opens with Shabazz talking with another large man on the balcony of a home at another private party. And of course, Shabazz has someone filming and streaming the interaction… because it didn’t really happen if it’s not being streamed live on social media.
Shabazz appears a little less ebullient, perhaps more ‘humbled’ than the previous night, until he becomes offended that the man he’s talking to doesn’t know who he is. So Shabazz accuses him of lying.
“You do know who I am. I don’t know why you’re lying. Don’t act like you don’t know me,” Shabazz says.
“I don’t know you,” the man replies. “Nice to meet you, though.”
“Don’t be lying because girls are around and sh*t,” Shabazz replies. “You definitely know me, bro. This some disrespectful sh*t.”
The man, who despite Shabazz’s aggression, has been generously polite up to this point, finally loses his patience: “I don’t like your attitude and I don’t like your f*cking tone.” And then the penny appears to drop for him. “Are you the guy that got slapped on video (24 hours earlier)?”
“Yeah, but I’ll slap the sh*t out of you,” Shabazz fires back. “I’ll make you another clip.”
“Seriously?” the man says, before Shabazz steps closer to him and replies, “Do you wanna do that?”
Now, again, for context, Shabazz, hasn’t gained any height or bulk overnight. He still resembles a cartoon character and weighs less than the drink the man is holding. But in a sign Shabazz maybe did learn something from the night before, the man is only about twice his size.
Unfortunately for Shabaz, he’s also a retired mixed martial artist, and a former fighter for the UFC, a man named Tiki Ghosn… even his name suggests he’s capable of immense violence. And that’s precisely what follows.
As Shabazz steps closer to him, Ghosn – drink in hand – unleashes on Shabazz and sends the diminutive shot-taker sprawling across the verandah. The strike is so fast that it genuinely looks like a punch, but if you slow the video down, it’s actually Ghosn’s elbow that makes contact with Shabazz’s chin.
The rest of the video goes more or less as you might expect. Ghosn walks off. Shabazz somehow picks himself up off the floor, and then charges after Ghosn and starts trying to beat him up. That doesn’t work either, and Shabazz is eventually bundled back out onto the verandah and saved by onlookers from any further injury/humiliation.
The interactions are remarkable in their own right, but what’s truly staggering is that both of them have been shared on Shabazz’s own social media pages. Notwithstanding the fact that Shabazz appears to have no sense of shame whatsoever, he’s obviously figured that having been thoroughly humiliated live on social media not once, but twice in 24 hours, he may as well re-share the clips himself and try and get some sort of benefit from them.
This, of course, makes Shabazz not only the most shameless Youtuber in recent history, but also the perfect metaphor for the banality of social media, where the ‘race to the bottom’ means fame and infamy are exactly the same thing.
And for New Matilda readers not in the know, ‘influencer boxing’, as the ‘sport’ is called, was made infamous by Jake Paul, a 20-something Youtuber who challenged former world heavyweight Mike Tyson to a fight… not long before Tyson’s 60th birthday.
More recently, Paul, a vocal and avid Trump fan (which tells you more than you asked about his character) challenged another former World Heavyweight title holder Anthony Joshua to a fight. Unfortunately for Paul, Joshua accepted, whereupon he shattered Paul’s jaw in two places… and will hopefully receive a knighthood for forcing doctors to wire Paul’s mouth shut for at least a few months.
Meanwhile, Shabazz is reportedly licking his wounds at home this morning, and no doubt planning his next social media triumph. In response, French Police have increased security around the grave of former WWE wrestler Andre the Giant.
Donate To New Matilda
New Matilda is a small, independent media outlet. We survive through reader contributions, and never losing a lawsuit. If you got something from this article, giving something back helps us to continue speaking truth to power. Every little bit counts.
