Logan Paul and KSI are set to box in an event that may be the biggest in internet history.
And in this video, we are going to explore the mental side of this fight
including who is behaving in a more dominant manner
and who appears to think that they are going to win.
But before you can understand all the real importance of KSI-and-Logan smack talk,
you need a basic understanding of frames.
Now, this is something I've discussed in a video on Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones
and you can check that out in the description but basically,
a frame dictates the rules and context of any interaction.
So two people may enter an interaction with different frames but usually,
the frame that is held more strongly will change the other one.
For a concrete example this, just watch the master of frame control, Conor McGregor.
Who do you think would give you the hardest fight out of anybody on stage?
Jeremy: Right here. Right here. The hardest hitting 145-pound.. the real hardest hitting 145er. Right here.
Jeremy: This guy TKOs people. When I knock people out, they don't f** move.
Conor: Who the f** is that guy? [Audience cheers] Who the f** is that?
Jeremy: You know damn well who I am. Conor: Who the f** is that? Oh, my god.
Now, frame control isn't just duped out with words though;
you can see frames clash simply with body language.
In this next clip for example, Johanna here goats Rose Namajunas
offering the frame that she should have a typical dominant style stare-down.
And of course, Johanna wants to win that display of dominance.
But Rose does not enter that dominance frame.
Rose doesn't flinch — not when Joanna gets close, not when she takes her glasses off,
and not even when she touches her face.
Now, Joanna doesn't necessarily react to Rose.
But the fact that she is doing so much and getting no reaction from her
makes her come across as a try-hard.
Rose wins just by not reacting and total side note here,
this is reminiscent of the coolest Kobe Bryant frame moment ever.
[Audience cheering]
So now that you have a basic idea of frame control,
we can begin to analyze who seems to think that they're going to win in this boxing match and who has the stronger frame.
Now, at first, Logan seemed to have won in both categories;
you can see in this next clip how he surprised KSI in his gym.
Notice KSI's eyes lack of eye contact; you also check out how Logan touches KSI
which in this case can be perceived as a gesture of dominance.
You got to get to the gym. You want me to close the deal?
Let's close the deal, alright?
So let's close the deal right now.
Alright, good. I got your contract right here. "Logan Paul VS KSI — August 25th."
Now, this is a great example of Logan Paul making a powerful first impression.
In normal life, you want the same impact but in a much friendlier way.
So if you're curious how to establish a strong first impression frame
without being a bully, I'm gonna link to a video on how you can do that with anyone.
Just click below, drop your email and you can check that video out after this one.
Back to Logan and KSI...
Get in the ring, start training, and start sweating.
From a frame perspective, you can see KSI reacting and responding to most of Logan's insults.
Look out for me. Yeah.
Now you can be down and you're still going to be looking at me, boi.
You know what's funny about this? You're on YouTube for me, bro.
Meanwhile, Logan has almost no trouble, simply ignoring KSI, to crack his own jokes,
and he seems to just look away however he pleases.
...because I'm coming in hot.
Team KSI, if you want to come to Team Maverick, we're hiring.
Get your merchs on LoganPaul.com/shop.
I got some on the way for your house, by the way. A lot of it is for your mother.
So when it came to setting the frame, Logan seemed to have the advantage early on.
He maintained this high-speed bravado and at the L.A. press conference,
he criticized ksi for not looking him in the eye during their previous encounter.
What's up now? Look at him, yo. Look at him, yo.
Finally, you look me in my eyes, bitch. Finally, you look me in my eyes. Finally.
But something seemed to have happened with Logan;
things took a turn at the London press conference.
Now, Logan was clearly affected by the unfriendly crowd
which shifted his once brash behavior to a much meeker and milder demeanor
and he also reacted to both ksi and the crowd when speaking —
getting cut off in ways that just hadn't happened before.
Logan: I'll be honest—
F** you, Logan.
Audience: F** you, Logan.
F** you, Logan.
Audience: F** you, Logan.
F** you, Logan.
Audience: F** you, Logan.
Now, it's not insane to react to a crowd of unfriendly people with less bravado.
But it was in the Face 2 Face conversation that you saw that Logan's frame seemed to be compromised even one-on-one.
He came out with a solid frame — he was nonreactive, he was throwing insults,
and he didn't even seem to see KSI as anywhere near in equal athletically.
Are you mad? Are you mad?
No, seriously. I'm, like, I'm sitting here.
KSI: I love it.
I'm like, "Oh, wait. Like, what are you, some kind of crazy person? Are you stupid, bro?"
I wouldn't get in the ring with me. I'm an animal.
And through this exchange, it was the case that Logan often broke eye contact
with KSI to look at the interviewer or side to side or even to the floor.
None of that would be a big deal by itself.
The problem occurred when KSI called Logan out for that lack of eye contact.
And you can see Logan laugh a little bit too much at the next silly thing that happened
then he has this tight shrug and then he seems to struggle to find a comeback that makes sense.
I think it's interesting that throughout this whole interview,
you're all looking everywhere but my eyes.
I just like to be honest — to be honest with you,
I'm kind of done with the talk and the bulls**t
Logan: because let's be honest— KSI: Oh, Logan.
"Oh, Logan." [Laughs hard] I'm going to make that my ring tone. Um...
My read is that Logan felt caught red-handed here
because he had previously teased KSI for not looking him in the eye.
And now here he was across the table from KSI doing the exact same thing.
So that nervous energy from being shown to be inconsistent
boiled over into uncontrollable expressions of fidgeting; this is extremely common —
you cannot always control your fidgets or your micro-expressions and they're often the most telling for reading body language.
Now, you can contrast that with Logan's brother Jake
who had no reaction to the same call out about eye contact.
In this case, Jake didn't feel the need to look Deji in the eye
and he didn't buy the idea that looking down was a sign of weakness
so it wasn't hard for Jake to sit there and remain unreactive.
...gonna fly itself and the clip will be shown over and over and over again.
Can you take that kind of push, yeah?
Nah, don't... no, wait. Why'd you look down when you said that? Why'd you look down?
To answer your question—
[Laughs hard] Okay. Alright, cool.
You're the only person that laughs at that joke.
In fact, if you watch the entirety of the Deji VS Jake Paul interview,
you can see Jake completely dominate the frame control.
He speaks slowly, he doesn't react when he's interrupted,
and he comes across as calm composed and professional while Deji looks like a try-hard.
You understand why they're saying he's the underdog?
Yeah, I mean he's shorter, he weighs less...
You say I weigh less?
...he's never trained in his life — sorry, he asked me a question so I was answering him —
he's never trained in his life, he's been a gamer, he's not an athlete...
That's not true.
...his trainer is a joke, his first trainer dropped—
But back to KSI and Logan, so far, Logan has begun to feel agitated which
isn't the best place to be when you're conducting mental warfare but it's not terrible.
The problem gets bigger though when KSI calls out this nervous energy that he sees.
The only thing that matters is August 25th—
You don't want to do this, do you?
Not really. I just want to kick the sh** out of you. I don't know why we need this.
This is making you uncomfortable, isn't it?
It's just hard to sit here in front of you.
KSI: You're scared.
Okay, that's—
So you're going to get in the ring fight on emotion, tactics...
Emotion?
Are you going to fight on emotion?
No-no-no-no. I'm calm, cool, and collected. I have a strategy, I have a fight plan—
Now, Logan may or may not be scared but he certainly isn't ice-cold calm and collected.
He's at least a little bit bothered.
For further confirmation, just a few seconds later, you can see him
bobbing his shoulders and tapping his leg quite a bit.
Again, not a big deal except that this is the first time that we've seen this behavior from Logan.
You just got your first YouTube show, bro. Congratulations. It's your big day.
That's round one. Have you knocked him out yet?
None of these behaviors are necessarily bad; they're just a release of pent-up energy.
The issue is that despite the fact that Logan is beginning to feel bothered,
he wants to represent himself as being cool, calm, and collected
and he seems to believe that the more relaxed person will be the winner.
So when he's called out again, he subconsciously slows down his speaking pace
and drops his vocal tonality in an attempt to appear more relaxed. Just watch.
I finish you off and enjoy Korea.
I feel like you believe yourself. That's why I envy your ignorance. I really do.
I wish... I wish... In a way, I sort of have that but
it's-it's really... it's crazy, bro and I'm happy for you, bro.
You're all fidgeting, bro.
Fidgeting?
Mm. You're starting to get nervous. Are you nervous?
I just sp— I guess it's hard for me to see—
You're lips are quivering.
I don't think so. But astute observation there, Sherlock.
It's at this moment that Logan has lost control of the frame of this interaction.
He's bought into the frame that calm is better
and he's trying to come across that way even though it isn't how he feels.
And while you probably won't ever find yourself in a televised press conference before a fight,
here is my recommendation if you do find yourself in that weird situation.
First, yes, remaining calm would probably be ideal.
It shows the other person that you're unaffected by them and it can potentially
make them wonder why you seem to have ice water in your veins.
So do what you can to steel your nerves before the interaction
and we have other videos on remaining calm and confident
which you can check out in the description below.
But if your composure slips, even more important than appearing calm
is being authentic to how you feel.
That might not come out pretty; it can even look something like this.
[Nate cursing while Conor laughs]
Now, Nate doesn't necessarily win the trash-talking part of that exchange
but he does remain in line with his own feelings and his own frame.
And when he walks off the set in frustration,
he hasn't caved to Conor's frame; he's remained in his own.
So define how you would like to behave before any kind of tense interaction.
You want to practice it. We talked about how to do that in the videos
I mentioned in the description and then live it.
For people like Conor McGregor, that might mean being extremely provocative.
For Rose Namajunas, unis that means being unperturbed.
But what you don't want to do is come in with a game plan to behave
in one manner — say, professionally — and then get sucked into your opponent's
frame and constantly be reacting to them
which is kind of what happened to Jose Aldo before his fight with Conor McGregor.
[Audience cheering]
What are you going to do? What are you going to do?
If your opponent starts to gain the upper-hand in the mental game
and you start to subconsciously recognize them as dominant,
it can have important effects in the actual competition.
Now, recently, it seems like Logan has been more reactive than proactive
which is why I have to give the mental warfare to KSI at this point.
But the mental game isn't done and an interview isn't a fight.
The decisive moments gonna come when one fighter sets the frame for the fight.
Now, for analyzing that, I am not at all an expert but if I did have to go out on a limb,
I would predict as the winner of the KSI-and-Logan-Paul fight — drum roll please —
Logan.
Now, he's got size, he's got reach, and he's been an athlete his whole life
but that's just based on my limited knowledge so don't take that to the bank;
it's not with the same certainty that I've made in my other charisma style predictions.
Anyways, I hope that you guys in like this video.
If you did, we have other videos related to frame control which I will link to
in the description and of course, on screen here .
Make sure that you subscribe to the channel and hit the notification bell because
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so subscribe, hit that notification bell, and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.