Creator Clash: Doctor Mike On Why He Can Beat iDubbbz, Sparring With Amanda Serrano, The Importance Of Doctors On Social Media

Mike Varshavski, better known online as Doctor Mike, is an influencer, YouTuber and practicing doctor with millions of followers across YouTube and Instagram. In 2015, he was named the "world's sexiest doctor" by People Magazine. Since then, he's been making medical-themed content meant to both entertain and educated in a unique and easily digestible way.

Most recently, Mike has been training tirelessly for iDubbbz' upcoming influencer boxing event called Creator Clash, where he'll be facing off against iDubbbz himself in the headlining fight. We connected with Mike to get all the details on the upcoming fight and learn more about the "internet's sexiest doctor."

Q: It’s great to talk to you, Mike. Can you introduce yourself and let everyone know what you do online?

A: My name is Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, I'm probably better known as Dr. Mike, I'm a board-certified family medicine physician by training, so during the day, I am treating patients, seeing them in my community office-based practice and then online, I'm a health educator trying to put out accurate evidence-based information all while having fun. So far, we've done that quite successfully with over 9 million subscribers on YouTube, millions elsewhere, and billions of views all in the name of accurate health-based info.

Q: Before we get into Creator Clash, how did you get started making content on YouTube?

A: When I was in my residency, I kept seeing a recurring theme of patients being misled about stuff that they've either read online or heard in media through these experts that was leading to worse health outcomes for them or confusing them about how the health industry actually worked. I've constantly started having those same conversations over and over again and I've realized, why don't we use social media as a tool to have those conversations in a not stuffy, not boring, not medical textbook verbiage way and instead have some fun, introduce some pop culture into it, use some of the known cultural icons and pair it with some accurate evidence-based info. Over time, we've really built up trust with the audience where if they see a topic that either pertains to them or their family members, they wanna watch about it, they wanna learn about it. And they know that when they come to my channel, they're gonna get not only educated, but have a good laugh and fun along the way.

Q: When did you first get into boxing?

A: This was in early 2011. Well, I guess I should probably go earlier than that because when I was younger, I took martial arts very seriously. I did eight years of Taekwondo and I was going to tournaments across the United States. I was very passionate about it, wanted to go into the Olympic style training for it, but because I got into a seven-year straight medical program, which means right out of high school, you do three years of undergrad, lots of credits and then immediately move on to the med school component of it, I kind of had to give that up.

During my med school, I, unfortunately, lost my mom to cancer, and that was in late 2010. After that, I was very, almost depressed, not leaving my house, not doing anything outside of going to school and class and I said, "I need to do something, I need to focus on my health," 'cause I was really not taking care of my own mind and body. I found boxing was a tremendous outlet for me to do that, where I can release some of my stress, get my heart rate going, get me excited about exercising and leaving the house again. It kind of took me out of that really dark place that I found myself after losing my mom and then since then for 10 years or so, I was training in boxing, but not how a professional would train.

I wasn't doing it four or five times a week, I wasn't sparring, I would occasionally do some body sparring, work out twice a week boxing and then do some weight lifting, or playing basketball and I've had a really athletic background. Over the last year or so, I viewed the social media people getting really into boxing, and my trainer was always saying, "Mike, I could see you having a career in this, you should really consider it." And with everything going on, all the opportunities that have been afforded to me, which I'm very blessed to have, we've been able to create this amazing event with the help of iDubbbz and his team that I'm really excited about.

Q: How did you get involved with iDubbbz and Creator Clash?

A: I was actually looking for a fight a little bit before Creator Clash was announced, and while iDubbbz was still looking to fight RiceGum. When that fell through, he made a video almost at the same time that I did, training with Ryan Garcia, and he put out a call basically, "who wants to fight," and he kind of looked like he was my size, I wasn't sure, 'cause I'd never met him in person, so I left some comments on his videos, I threw a few tweets his way. We connected on Discord, we saw that we both had a similar vision to how we wanted a boxing event to go and right away we said, "Let's make it happen," and through all of the steps that needed to be taken, we followed through and now we have an amazing event coming May 14th.

Q: Were you a fan of iDubbbz before you started looking for a fight?

A: Yeah, I would watch his Content Cop series and I like how honest and forward he was because I knew that getting into the boxing space with somebody who perhaps likes to talk a lot of dirt and get into the weeds and started being rude, that wasn't something I was particularly interested in… That's probably one of the parts of influencer boxing I find a little bit ridiculous. When you're a pro and you've had 30 fights and you need to make it interesting and this is your livelihood… I get why people do that. Let's be realistic, we're early in our careers, we just gotta train and close our mouth and get up there and show what we can do and iDubbbz was really sort of the person that I trusted to do that and I'm really glad I did because so far, he and his team have put in a lot of work to make this a very successful event just by looking at ticket sales and pay per view numbers, it's really exciting.

Q: What's your training regimen been like for the fight and how have you had to switch it up from how you regularly train?

A: Well, what a lot of fighters and amateur fighters specifically probably get wrong about boxing is that they think they need to work on their cardio, meaning go out and run five, eight miles and they'll be ready for a fight, but as soon as you step in that ring your heart rate shoots up so high that that kind of training is almost of very little benefit. So you have to train in these high heart rate zones and I find that to be probably the most difficult part about boxing because when you are sparing, and even when you're hitting pads, it's easy to get your heart rate high because there is that sense of threat, there is that sense of excitement, so it's easy to get your heart rate high and keep it high during the early rounds.

It's very hard to do that when you're alone in a room on a treadmill because what your body wants to do when your heart rate gets that high is to stop. Why are you running? There's no threat, you're just moving on a treadmill, there's nothing going on around you and you have to push through doing that week in and week out, sometimes multiple times throughout the week. Where I found myself going is in my head thinking about my third-grade bullies, thinking about everyone who's said that I will never make it this far, things that I've never had to resort to. I found that you have to do this and I've gotten really great sort of advice in this space from the greats, Amanda Serrano, Ryan Garcia, about how you have to motivate yourself in order to wake up in the morning, to get on that treadmill, to go outside for those runs, it's not easy because that is where the real work happens. Everyone sees the fight, but it's that build-up before that truly decides who wins the fight.

Q: Who have you been training under and what have they been able to teach you about boxing?

A: My trainer, who I started working with in 2011, Thomas Baldwin, he's a Golden Gloves winner, an experienced pro fighter in his own right, a winning pro fighter, has shared a lot of what I can expect on Fight Night, how much I have to keep cool and keep calm, what it's gonna feel like as soon as that bell rings and you have 10,000 fans cheering, that mental aspect is the biggest sort of thing he's focused on getting me ready for. He knows that I have the athleticism, the speed, the footwork, he wants me to be there mentally 110%, so we are practicing like the smallest little details, so that it becomes automatic and I don't have to think about, "What do I do now? Should I just panic?" Instead, he's getting me used to feeling calm under pressure, so having bigger guys than me come in and throw punches at me very hard while I can't even punch back, but I have to breathe calmly. That is probably one of the hardest things to do in boxing, to have someone throwing punches hard at you and you have to breathe in as if you're catching a break on a chair, but that is what decides winners and losers in this sport.

Q: Being a doctor, you're probably aware of how dangerous boxing is and what sort of risks come with it. Has that affected your outlook on the fight at all?

A: I think it's given me a very realistic, honest view of what it means to go into fighting, so I understand the risks that go into getting hit in the face outside of the cuts, the broken noses, popped eardrums. I'm thinking more of CTE, what's gonna happen to my brain and what science has really told us is, it's that chronic build-up of injury that is the most dangerous for fighters. I'm probably not looking to have a 20-30 fight career, just given my age in boxing, but I think if I don't do this for at least a few fights, I would be letting myself down because while this is an absolute risk, it's a risk with consequences that I understand, that I've made explicitly clear to my fans, to people that watch the channel that you can actually box for fitness, you can go hit a bag, you can do a fitness class in boxing, you can hit pads with your trainer, you can get an amazing workout, probably a better work out than many other sports you can play without necessarily getting hit back, it's only when you've accepted these risks and have a really good understanding of what the consequences can be, should you really be stepping inside the ring.

Q: What is it that makes iDubbbz a good first opponent for you?

A: I love that we both have no amateur background, meaning we've never had fights before. I think that makes it a really fair experience, even fighting someone who's had a loss before would be very difficult because they know what it's like to do the walkout, go into the ring, step in, have the bell ring, feel another person on you. So I think that makes the fight a lot more fair for us. Also, I've been very surprised with how hard and serious iDubbbz has been taking this, so it gets me excited to have a level of high competition.

I didn't wanna have a first fight like very traditionally, in boxing, when you become pro, you get a lot of tune-up fights early on, we've seen that with the likes of Tommy Fury, like his first, I think five or six opponents had a combined record of 10 wins and 100 losses, so he was basically given wins in order to get his feet wet and comfortable. I don't want that, I want a strong challenger, so I'm glad iDubbbz is coming in, training with his coach, excited, getting him ready to make this a serious fight, 'cause I don't wanna put on a boring flight for the fans, I want them to see four rounds of action, no one getting tired, everyone getting serious and really put on a great show.

Q: Are you planning to keep fighting after Creator Clash?

A: I want to. Obviously, the outcome matters to me in terms of what happens in the ring and how I feel in the ring, I don't think it's decided whether it's a win or a loss, more so how I feel in the ring, how I feel after the ring, what my trainer says to me. I genuinely trust his advice, because we've become family over these 10 years, I treat his family as a doctor, so he trusts me with that, I trust him with sort of my life in the ring and if he tells me that he thinks I'm ready and he's comfortable sending me back in for a second fight, I'm absolutely ready to go.

Q: What's your main motivation for this fight?

A: My main motivation is probably the fact that this is my first fight, A, and I wanna make a good showing, and B, that it's for charity, and while the event is gonna be donating money as well to multiple charities, the fighters each also get a purse of $20,000 for training fees, etcetera. I'm gonna take that $20,000 plus whatever pay per view bonus, if there is any, that we get and donate that all to GlobalGiving charity for the Ukraine struggle that's going on right now. To me, I wish I could be there. I'm of Russian background, actually, I was born in Russia, and my father is telling me all the horrific things that have happened in the country and how he stands with Ukraine, so I can't be in that war, but if I'm gonna be fighting, I might as well be fighting for a great cause like theirs.

Q: What kind of reactions have you been getting from your fans and followers about the fight?

A: You know, I think a lot of them are torn, they're confused, they're like, "Shouldn't a doctor be healing people instead of beating people?" There are a lot of jokes about me prescribing my hands, being the "pharmacist" instead of the pharmacist. But in reality, I think what this should show people is that you shouldn't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone and never allow people to label you.

From day one, I was always labeled as something. When I first came to this country, I was labeled the immigrant because I couldn't speak English and people made fun with me. When I was in high school, I was a very smart kid, I was in the Math and Science Institute, I was actually the president of the Math and Science Institute and when I would be in the principal's office for those meetings, those monthly meetings, the principal would assume I'm there for detention because of the way I was dressed, I kind of dressed in baggy clothes and such, so I've constantly been mislabelled and unfairly labeled.

So as a doctor, everyone expects me to act a certain way or follow the rules in a certain way and we've already changed the mold with social media. Doctors traditionally shouldn't be on social media because it's labeled unprofessional. But the reality is there's so much benefit to people of doctors being on social media. And the absence of doctors has led to a crazy amount of misinformation surfacing on social media and I think thinking outside the box has always been one of my strong suits and I'm hoping this boxing event can be one of those beneficial events.

Q: Who are you most excited to get in the ring during the event?

A: I really want to see Michael Reeves throw down, because I watch his videos, we've actually colabed on a video before, I feel like his walkout is going to be epic, A, and then, B, he looks like he's training very legitimately which I did not expect from Michael Reeves. I thought he was going to do some kind of show joke with it, but the fact that he's getting into serious shape and I know when he dedicates himself he does ridiculously awesome stuff, so I need to watch that fight very thoroughly.

Q: You recently trained with Amanda Serrano. How did that go down?

A: So Amanda Serrano, obviously a legend in her own right, seven weight division champion, not getting enough publicity for the amount of work she's put in and success she's had in the sport and she trains in New York. So when we reached out to her team about the possibility of filming with her she was very open to it, her team was very open to it, so we went to her gym. Actually, the gym she happened to be sparring in that day was no-joke five blocks from where I went to high school and grew up. So I felt right at home, all the people in the gym we actually knew the same folks, it was a very like community feel in that gym, it was like one of those basement grungy gyms that I actually grew up going to, so when I go to those gyms in the city and they're all fancy and high-end I'm like, "This isn't a gym, we need cobwebs, we need rusted metal plates everywhere," because those gyms; a lot of people are afraid to go to them, but they have some of the nicest people, the people who will take the shirt off their backs and give it to you if you need it, meanwhile they look the biggest and angriest, sweetest, kindest hearts you'll find at those gyms.

Q: What is it that separates Creator Clash from other influencer boxing events?

A: I think it's because we cut out the BS. A lot of these other influencer matches are like, "Let's see how we can hype up the fight with BS bets and name calling and attacking each other and all this stuff," and you don't need to do that. The hype is there because you're going to punch each other in the face. This is a dangerous sport you're going to participate in and when iDubbbz came with that same personality and same mentality about fighting I got really excited. Because I look at fighters who have had tremendously successful careers like Manny Pacquiao for example, he never had to talk smack. Everyone thinks they need to be Mayweather and make fun of their opponents and show off how wealthy and rich they are but there are other ways to go about it. Let your skill speak for itself, let your ability to put on a good show speak for itself. Not everything needs to turn into a WWE match.

Q: What makes you confident that you can take out iDubbbz on fight night?

A: I think my experience here, my athleticism, the fact that iDubbbz has had to put on so much weight over the last year is going to make it tremendously difficult for him. I think he's underestimating me because we haven't seen each other in person. The size difference, once we step in the ring, because the guys I'm fighting in sparring sessions are even bigger than me. I obviously fight some smaller guys as well, but the guys that are bigger than me are 45 pounds bigger than me. They're amateur fighters, they have fights under their belt. I'm hitting them and they're in pain. They're in near-knockout and this is with 16oz gloves with a padded thing on my knuckles and helmets and they're so much bigger than me.

What's going to happen when I'm hitting someone who's my size or even smaller? In all honestly, when I fight guys who are iDubbbz size my trainer does not allow me to use my right hand. He says you're only allowed to jab because it would just not be fair, you would not be learning anything in those sparring sessions, so we have to create other challenges. And unless iDubbbz comes in, I mean, I haven't seen him fight obviously, but unless he comes in like the future champion of boxing I think he's going to have a really rough night. And I actually hate that because I think he's such a nice guy.

Q: What do you want people to take away from Creator Clash and your fight with iDubbbz?

A: The takeaway is that while everyone sees what happens on fight night, the real victors are the ones that put in the time and training and respect the sport. It's very easy to be loud, it's very easy to be flashy, and it's very difficult to be consistent with high-quality training, which means taking into account the science of it, which is I feel another one of my advantages, knowing how the body works and how it responds to stress, so yeah. I look forward to it, I think it's going to be an amazing event, I hope everyone buys tickets or at least streams the fight at home.

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If you want to see Doctor Mike face off against iDubbbz on May 14th, you can buy streaming and in-person tickets for the Creator Clash at thecreatorclash.com. You can follow Doctor Mike on YouTube and Instagram.