LUKE MARSDEN: my verbal jousts with the Wigan Joker

​Last autumn, a well-known (in Scholes at least!) comedian dubbed The Wigan Joker started to “call me out” on his sizeable social media channels.

His followers began sending me messages, sharing what he’d said about me. Then things took a turn: he wanted a fight.

Now I know I’ve had some experience in the world of professional wrestling, but that is purely as a commentator. The Rock I am not. Nonetheless, I agreed to this live “fight” on YouTube because I never back down from a challenge.

We exchanged a few private messages and agreed we wouldn’t actually come to blows to settle our differences because we aren’t 12-year-olds. But that didn’t stop the mob.

Hundreds of comments began to pile up in the run-up to the big showdown, nearly all of them wanting to see me hospitalised. People genuinely thought I was going to engage in a scrap live on YouTube for free.

The result: hundreds of Wiganers and more across the nation tuned in to see what started as a comedy roast but evolved into something more tangible: a spirited discussion about the pitfalls of fame, reality TV and Wigan’s perilous future.

What we did agree on was how sad it was that the dangling of potential live violence resulted in a record-breaking livestream for The Wigan Joker and the subsequent action replay of the stream has racked up thousands more views.

If you do have an hour of your life that you don’t know what to do with, I encourage you to watch the replay over at https://www.youtube.com/Thewiganjoker.

Why did it take the potential of a physical fight to gain lots of eyeballs on the live stream? Sadly I’ve run out of room in this column but rest assured dear reader, I’m already in training for the next battle…