Why would Chase DeMoor, a reality-show staple, agree to a boxing match with someone like Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist currently under investigation in the UK for rape charges?
“That’s exactly why I had to fight him,” says DeMoor. “He’s a horrible human being. And he’s got all these beta males that follow him. I knew I had to knock him out.”
Held in Dubai, the promoters dubbed it: The Fight Before Christmas.
Tate, while 40 years old, is a former kickboxer with 76-9-1 record from 2007-2020. One would imagine he’d carry those skills into the ring with DeMoor. Surely, Tate would knock DeMoor out early, perhaps even in the first round.
But alas, even though DeMoor’s arms did more flailing than punching, he won the fight by decision and left Andrew Tate’s face bruised and battered. After the six-round fight, which DeMoor won via majority decision, Tate was chastened and congratulated DeMoor. He went as far as to say he admired his “true grit.”
Five months after the fight, DeMoor takes a break from his workout at a Santa Monica Equinox to discuss relationship reality shows, influencer “boxing” and why, on the inside, he’s still eight years old.
Family Matters
If you ask DeMoor where his story begins, he launches into a by-the-numbers motivational speech punctuated by words like strength and hard work. If you ask him to go back further, he’ll come up with an anecdote about being competitive in high school because he always wanted to be the best.
He treats interviews like the Q&A at a beauty pageant. Watch your posture. Restate the question. Make eye contact. And then smile. You can practically see an actual twinkle in his eye coupled with the sound effect.
It’s only when you get to eight-year-old DeMoor that his face changes from forced smile to wide-eyed vulnerability.
“One day, in third grade, I was waiting to get picked up,” says DeMoor. “And my teacher asked me what time my mom was coming. I told her my grandparents were coming. She looked at me like that was the most abnormal thing in the world.”
The teacher wasn’t done. She pressed DeMoor for more details on his living arrangements.
“The next day, she’s asking me questions like where my mom worked and how old she was and where I lived and why I lived with my grandparents. Every answer I gave her, like how my mom was 28 and worked in a coffee shop, this teacher looked so confused.”
It was then that DeMoor retreated and began to see his world the way others did.
“So, I’m like, okay, I’m biracial. In a very white town,” says DeMoore. Then, he moved in with his aunt and uncle, (whom he refers to as his adoptive family).
“My aunt and uncle are like my parents and my cousins are like my siblings. I love them and they’re wonderful people. But I started doing the math and realized my mom had me really young. And I didn’t have a relationship with my dad so I started to see how I stood out.”
It was time for DeMoor to make some choices on how he would manage his story and not let it become an inescapable narrative.
From Football to Reality Television to Influencer Boxing
While DeMoor claims Seattle as his (very white) hometown, he’s actually from (very very white) Eatonville, ninety-minutes away.
How white is Eatonville? Look up the town and you find just two notable people. DeMoor and Mark Fuhrman—the racist LAPD detective whose perjured testimony was a major factor in OJ Simpson being found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife.
DeMoor says that when he realized where he was and how he was perceived, he became withdrawn and just watched. Who were the kids that were popular? Who were the kids who got along with everyone?
He noted that they were kids like his best friend John: good students and great athletes.
“I decided, still in elementary school, that I would become better than John at anything he did,” says DeMoor. “If he came to class on time, I showed up early. And whatever he was doing as an athlete, I decided I’d be better.”
DeMoor played football in high school and then he moved around, playing for College of the Siskiyous in northern California and then Central Washington University. Then, he returned to Seattle to try out for his hometown team, the Seattle Seahawks. He didn’t make the roster.
By 2020, it was clear that a career in professional football wasn’t in the cards. Enter: TikTok. He starts recording himself snaring footballs with one hand. When that doesn’t bring any traffic, he records himself catching greased up footballs with one hand. The videos are as random as they sound. But thousands of viewers engaged with every clip.
And then, thanks to those chiseled cheekbones, that dimpled chin, and twinkling eye, he goes from oiled up footballs, to being cast in a reality program: Too Hot To Handle.
On that show, the contestants think they are on a traditional hook-up reality show. But once they all meet (and see how hot they all are), they learn they will lose money every time they do so much as kiss. Chase didn’t win because he was too flirtatious and hadn’t shown enough personal growth.
From there, in just four years, Chase has become a mainstay in the reality dating show crossover ecosystem. He brings an ultra cocky persona into Perfect Match, (strategic dating meets Big Brother) then continues shades of the same dude in related shows like All Store Shore, Celebrity Ex on The Beach, and House of Heat. All different strains of the same show with the same Chase.
While still signing on to every show that will cast him, DeMoor started his run as a boxer. And now, he’s trying to see how far he can go.
“I made it. I’m the Heavyweight Champion,” says DeMoor. He flaunts his title without clarifying that he’s the heavyweight champion of the Misfits Boxing X Series, a promotion composed of influencers and celebrity boxers like himself and Andrew Tate, who just so happens to be the orginazation’s CEO.
“I wasn’t supposed to win,” DeMoor says of the Tate fight. “He’s a four time world champion kickboxer. I come from reality shows. He's a seasoned combat vet while I was catching footballs on TikTok. He had everything in his favor.”
Thanks to this high-profile win, DeMoor is not planning to stay in the Misfits league. His next step is attempting to transition to traditional boxing. That would have to begin with fighting in matches governed by the WBA, WBC, IBF or WBO.
Between influencer boxing and reality shows and being a content creator, it seems completely unnecessary for DeMoor to train to be actually pummeled in a ring.
Bernard Hopkins once said about boxing: “I wouldn’t want anybody I care about to box.
DeMoor marinates on Hopkins' thoughts on boxing. Every boxer, from Manny Pacquiao to Mike Tyson, has said the same: boxing is a sport to escape your conditions or prove something about yourself.
DeMoor responds immediately.
“That’s exactly why I’m doing it,” says DeMoor. His jaw is set. There is no smile and no twinkling eye. “I wear a mask in this world. I’m still eight years old and I’m still being judged. No matter how much money I make or what I achieve, I wake up every single day thinking about how I can’t go back to the day before.”
