This article was first published yesterday in our bespoke Sports newsletter The Fixture. You can sign up in seconds to receive it straight to your inbox every weekday here. 

The Fixture can't help drawing comparisons with BBC sitcom The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin each time I'm confronted by an influencer attempting to sell his or her limited wares.

'Reggie Perrin' was so often on the money with its critique of the habits of the great British public and never more so than in season two of the 1970s comedy series. Reggie has quit the drudgery of his suburban commuter life at Sunshine Desserts and alighted upon the idea of opening his own shop.

'Grot: the place for rubbish' sells utter tat such as a square hoop, his brother in law's homemade wine and his doctor's egregious paintings of the Algarve. One of his employees suggests January sales in September with 20% added to the price of everything: the whole enterprise is a roaring success.

As a metaphor for the rising consumerism of the 70s – when cheaply made products from third world countries started appearing with regularity in British stores – David Nobbs, the writer of the Reggie Perrin books had made an astute observation on faddism: that the people would, indeed, buy any old rubbish just so long as everybody else wanted it, too.

Delve into the world of Instagram and it's clear that not very much has changed. The 'energy' drink Prime launched by YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI sells out in minutes in supermarkets all over the country with one off licence in Wakefield reported to have priced it at £100 a bottle. Prime, despite only being launched late last year, is estimated to have a company value of £18m. The drink is marketed as calorie free and zero sugar but experts have already pointed out that it contains sucralose, an "artificial sweetener which has been shown to alter the gut microbiome and increase levels of systemic inflammation". Never mind, everyone else is drinking so it can't all be bad right?

The Herald:

Which brings us to Paul's brother, Jake. If you haven't been living as a Tibetan monk or holed up in a sea cave for the past decade, you might have noticed that he was involved in boxing match against Tommy Fury, the brother of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson, at the weekend. Jake Paul has been forging a career as professional fighter for the past couple of years and prior to his split-decision defeat by Fury had won six out of six bouts. Paul has limited ability as a boxer but can also boast 22 million Instagram followers and so, pretty much everything he does is of interest to a huge audience. Quite why is anyone's guess, of course.

Writing in The New Statesman Sarah Manavis observed archly: “Today influencers aren’t just wannabe celebrities but real ones: the stars of blockbuster films, the leads of serious documentaries, the authors of bestselling books, the creative directors of fashion brands and the voices behind music that tops charts. Only a surface glimpse at these contributions confirms their lack of artistic value: this is what happens when 'content' becomes 'culture'.”

For some, the involvement of figures from the world of social media that can expose younger audiences to the sport of boxing is to be seen as a positive. Viewing figures are yet to be released but there are suggestions that they could top an audience of one billion for a fight between two novice boxers. It is an interesting juxtaposition because it demonstrates that those watching are not doing so to observe the skill of the fighters but merely because of the identity of the opponents and their huge followings on social media. It says much about the lack of a standout, truly blockbuster name in boxing, too.

Ultimately, these bouts between relative boxing non-entities have become the equivalent of another comedy series from yesteryear: Celebrity Death Match – in which clay model representations of famous people took each other on inside a ring with grotesque and often very funny consequences. It was, of course, a cartoonish foretelling of what came next as witnessed in Saudi Arabia between Fury and Paul at the weekend. It's a far cry from Saturday nights on ITV's Big Fight Live when the greats such as Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard could be seen stateside while big names such as Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank and Naseem Hamed featured in the UK.

Neither Paul nor Fury are fit to lace their Lonsdale boots but then their presence in boxing has little to do with boxing itself.