PAIt was the UFC fight nobody saw coming and – before it even began – its all over, resigned to the history books of Twitter lore.
Although not exactly renowned for his skills in the cage, Justin Bieber appeared to have gone full Conor McGregor when he challenged Tom Cruise to fight in the Octagon, even going as far as to tag Dana White in his bold tweet.
Fans were surprised by this apparently ferocious side to Biebs, especially after he has so recently expressed such a nonchalant approach to life in his duet I Don’t Care.
@justinbieber/TwitterIn a tweet which raised a thousand eyebrows, the Love Yourself singer declared a modern-day dual against Cruise, for reasons we can only speculate:
I wanna challenge Tom Cruise to fight in the octagon. Tom if you don’t take this fight your scared and you will never live it down. Who is willing to put on the fight? @danawhite ?
The initial public reaction was confusion, with many people pondering why exactly Bieber had picked out the 56-year-old Scientologist as somebody he’d like to punch. What had Tom done to mark himself out as a man cruising for a bruising?
PAOnce the first wave of bafflement wore off, some fans felt a bit nervous about Bieber’s chances in this mismatched bout. Although significantly older than the Canadian singer-songwriter, Cruise is kind of a machine.
Famous for doing his own stunts, this is a bloke who can leap between buildings and dangle from ceilings. He isn’t someone to be taken on lightly.
As amateur MMA fighter Tony Posnanski tweeted:
Tom Cruise was an all state wrestler in high school and has been training for over thirty years…
You can’t eat a burrito correctly…
Sit down Biebs.
GettyJust as suddenly as it surfaced, this odd-couple feud appears to have melted away, with Bieber apparently no longer thirsty for Cruise blood.
Speaking with TMZ, Bieber revealed he had just been just having a laugh. He apparently doesn’t even know Cruise, who had only been on his mind because of an interview he’d just seen.
In footage taken by TMZ, the Grammy Award winner opened up about his surreal Twitter outburst:
I don’t know him.
He’s tight. The story is I saw an interview with him, and he was just on my mind. It was just a random tweet. I do that stuff sometimes.
He added, ‘I think he’d probably whoop my ass in a fight’, noting ‘I’d have to get in shape’.
GettyWho will Bieber beckon into the Octagon next? And will they have the cojones to take him on?
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Jules studied English Literature with Creative Writing at Lancaster University before earning her masters in International Relations at Leiden University in The Netherlands (Hoi!). She then trained as a journalist through News Associates in Manchester. Jules has previously worked as a mental health blogger, copywriter and freelancer for various publications.