A controversial Miami YouTuber has responded to a lawsuit by a man alleging he was violently attacked by the influencer and three associates.
Wes Watson, whose YouTube channel, GP Penitentiary Life, has roughly 516,000 subscribers, contends he was protecting himself and others, though video of the confrontation shows that he was the aggressor, approaching Hakeem Ibrahim at Elev8tion Fitness with a weighted belt, flanked by three cronies.
Watson, who co-owns the gym, claims Ibrahim consented to the “alleged physical contact” by simply showing up after Watson issued an open challenge on social media. Gym cameras show Ibrahim being kicked, dragged by the hair and punched several times while pinned on the floor.
After the fight, which occurred in December 2024, Ibrahim confirmed to police that Watson had lured him to the gym by challenging him to a fight. Watson claimed he had been attacked by Ibrahim, though his gym’s cameras don’t seem to confirm his account.
“There is always a threat if he’s moving,” Watson tells the cops. “He could pull out a gun, admit it. I don’t know what’s in his waistband.”
“I’ve been to prison,” he continues. “I don’t care anymore.”
Ibrahim’s version of events seems to line up with the gym footage, though one man who said he saw other parts of the video wrote on X that Ibrahim “caused the problem.”
“So I came to the gym and they jumped me,” Ibrahim told police. “They hit me first, there was like three or four of them.”
Watson, who has built a following with profanity-laced “motivational” videos, denies there was an ambush in his response to Ibrahim’s 57-page lawsuit, which alleges Watson, a co-owner of the gym, and two unidentified men not only attacked him but also showered him with racial slurs and death threats.
When it was over, Ibrahim’s suit claims, a gym employee congratulated Watson with a fist bump.
Miami police appeared to believe Ibrahim’s account, as they secured warrants for Watson’s arrest on charges of aggravated battery and aggravated assault. He was identified as the “primary aggressor” and accused of launching a “vicious and sustained physical attack.”
Watson was arrested on April 9. After initially filing both charges recommended by police, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office dropped the aggravated battery charge. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 28.
Watson is demanding a jury trial in his response to the suit. He has otherwise stayed silent on the altercation even as he’s been dragged on social media for his role in the fight.
“Scrap one-on-one. When he’s done defending himself, he’s done … let it go,” said one commenter on X. “Continuing to beat on a defenseless dude makes you a b-tch, not a tough guy.”
In Watson’s videos, often filmed at gyms or in the front seat of a luxury automobile, Watson courts controversy with his confrontational style as he chats about personal accountability.
Watson often brings up his time spent in a California penitentiary to establish his tough-guy credentials.
“Once a fraud criminal, always a fraud criminal,” wrote one commenter on the Herald website. “There’s nothing about Wes Watson that is not a con job. Total clown.”
