SecondKnuckle boxing can best be described as its many contradictions. Known as the fastest growing combat sport in the world, it is also an ancient sport whose origins have been forgotten in prehistory. It’s bloody, but arguably less damaging to the brain than its gloved counterpart. It’s still relatively small in the world of professional sports in terms of fan numbers, but it’s racked up impressive box office numbers in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere.
“It’s humane enough to be mainstream, but it’s also borderline brutal,” said David Feldman, founder and chairman of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championships (BKFC). As the name suggests, bare knuckle boxing is a form of boxing. Two boxers enter the ring without gloves and, in a series of two-minute rounds, attempt to knock the other athlete unconscious. The winner of a match that does not end in a knockout is determined by the referee. Most boxers do wrap cloth around their wrists and thumbs to reduce the risk of injury to their own hands, but the striking surface of their fists (the knuckles) remains completely unprotected. Even for initially hesitant observers, it’s a compelling spectator sport.
An ungloved fist will bleed quickly. In BKFC, fighters will suffer cuts on their faces and hands early in almost every match. It creates cinematic images. The camera captured the boxer’s bloodied hands resting on the ropes between rounds and the bloodied face as the boxer focused on his opponent’s movements. It’s all reminiscent of the dramatic close-ups of fictional gladiators seen in sword-and-sandal epics. Feldman, whose life story seemed straight out of a Hollywood B-movie (and the younger brother of a notorious celebrity boxing guru), recognized the inherent appeal of BKFC.
“Let’s face it,” he said, “if they watch the fights, they like the blood. … We have the blood.” However, he is quick to claim that BKFC’s superficial damage does not translate into higher Long-term damage rate. This is another paradox at the heart of the sport.
“I never say ‘safe.’ Any time you go into a ring or a cage or anything, your goal is to knock [other] It’s “no more dangerous than other combat sports,” Feldman said. For example, most BKFC matches are not characterized by one-sided violence like the “ground and pound” matches found in mixed martial arts promotions such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Feldman and other BKFC officials continue to say that the incidence of brain injuries, such as concussions, is lower in bare-knuckle boxing matches than in boxing matches with gloves.
The logic is this: In addition to damaging the opponent’s body, a punch can also damage the puncher’s hand. This is especially true of punches to the face, since the hard bones of the skull are barely covered in muscle and the teeth have been specifically evolved to shred flesh. Boxing gloves protect a boxer’s hands, allowing the boxer to hit harder without increasing the risk of hand injury. Heavier punches can cause the brain to move within the skull after impact, leading to an increased risk of concussion. This argument may seem complicated or even counterintuitive, but it is supported by evidence.
Although a 2021 study found that lacerations, especially facial lacerations, were more common in bare-knuckle boxing, the study also determined that only 2.8% of the boxers studied experienced symptomatic brain injuries. Shock. In glove boxing matches, the figure is as high as 12.3%. Of course, we should take this message with a grain of salt—after all, the lead author of the 2021 study, Dr. Don Muzzi, is also BKFC’s chief medical officer. However, experts not involved in bare-knuckle boxing claim the study’s conclusions are sound.
Dr. Nicole Reams, an Illinois neuroscientist who serves as medical chairperson of the American Interscholastic Boxing Association, the glove boxing organization, and is an independent neurological consultant to the NFL’s Chicago Bears, said the study’s claims are “reasonable.” She also noted that data comparing the actual impact (i.e., the number of blows a boxer receives to the head in a given fight) between gloved and bare-knuckle fights would help further clarify the issue. Given the relative novelty of bare-knuckle boxing, the number of peer-reviewed studies remains small.
In reviewing the 2021 study, Reames specifically drew attention to the decrease in bare-knuckle boxing match time as a potential reason for the decrease in concussion rates in the sport. BKFC matches consist of five two-minute rounds. By comparison, men’s professional (gloved) boxing championships are typically scheduled for 12 three-minute rounds, meaning BKFC boxers spend less than one-third of the time in contact with their opponent’s fists that gloved boxers do.
“[The BKFC] Born for action,” Feldman said. “That’s why we only do five two-minute rounds.” BKFC’s relatively small fighting space further encourages more action. BKFC fighters circle a 16-foot-diameter ring, competing in an area that is significantly smaller than the smallest rings used in traditional professional boxing and several times smaller than the octagon used in the UFC.
The combination of intensive bouts, close combat and bare-knuckle fighting has successfully attracted the attention of combat sports fans, including former UFC champion Conor McGregor, who is now a shareholder in BKFC. What began as a single event in Wyoming featuring eight boxers has grown into a multi-continental brand that hosts multiple events each month. BKFC 66, a match scheduled for Friday night in Hollywood, Florida, is the organization’s 100th event since its inception in 2018. (Some games, such as those for rookies, are not included in the live tally of numbered events.) This growth has not come without the pain of increased visibility, however.
BKFC debutant Sam Polk’s victory in a prospect battle in Canada earlier this year was celebrated by white supremacist groups. Polk, who has a pair of neo-Nazi symbols tattooed on his chest, defeated BKFC rookie Jack Craig in what one prominent white supremacist leader declared was a “total victory for the Aryan race.” Feldman made it clear in an interview with the Guardian that Polk’s views do not represent those of BKFC.
“I’m Jewish,” Feldman said. “Like, I don’t support people wearing swastikas. … We don’t know [about Polk’s affiliations]. We found out later and then we obviously banned him from the game. We don’t support any such thing.
BKFC isn’t completely apolitical—the group sells T-shirts that say “Make America Brave Again”—but Feldman claims the merchandise has nothing to do with party politics and is instead an endorsement of free speech.
“Let’s be brave again — stand up for ourselves, man. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind because different groups may be angry at you. You should be able to speak your mind. … Be brave enough. hear I don’t even have the courage to speak out. Have the courage to let others speak their mind – see, what if you don’t like it? Don’t listen. Feldman went on to mention restrictions on such freedoms, such as hate speech, which reflected his reaction to the Polk incident.
In addition to Polk, BKFC has a number of likeable athletes from various combat sports. American Ryan Reber is the undefeated bantamweight fighter in the main event of BKFC 66. He comes from a traditional boxing background and has shown great resilience in previous games – he was in BKFC 32 has withstood multiple purposeful (and illegal) headbutts against Jack Grady to now go 6-0. (Due to the novelty of the sport, boxers have relatively short bare-knuckle win-loss records. For example, at BKFC 66, no boxer had competed in more than 10 BKFC bouts). Tonight, Leiber has a chance to become the BKFC bantamweight champion. To do so, however, he must defeat defending Cuban champion Alberto Blas, whom Feldman describes as a “buzz saw.” Even this strong comparison may be an understatement.
Blass competed in MMA before joining BKFC, going undefeated as an amateur before posting a losing record at Titan Fighting Championships, a now-canceled MMA promotion. However, since transitioning to hand-to-hand combat, Brass has become unbeatable. Not only is he undefeated like Reber, but Blas has yet to meet a second-rounder from BKFC: all of his fights have ended in first-round stoppages. Blas’s most recent opponent, Keith Richardson, was so dazed after fighting Blass for 70 seconds that, in his confusion, he began trying to fight the referee. Instead, Leiber fought multiple times throughout the five rounds.
“if [Reber] “If he can take the punishment or the onslaught in the first round, he has a good chance,” Feldman said. That’s a big if based on Boras’ record. A showdown between two undefeated fighters with different fighting styles would certainly be an attractive main event, but when asked about which fighter has the best chance to become a breakout star, Feldman pointed to the undercard of BKFC 66 .
“We call him ‘Bare Knuckle Tyson,'” he said of Cuban heavyweight Leonardo Perdomo, who fights heavyweight Steve Johnson ahead of tonight’s main event. Steve Banks competed. Like Blas, Perdomo has won every match he’s played with BKFC via first-round knockout. However, as a heavyweight, Perdomo weighs almost twice as much as Brass (literally), which would be the case if the heavyweight division of bare-knuckle boxing proves to be the most marketable (as is often the case with glove boxing) (but not always), then Perdomo seems ready to become the face of BKFC. If he does, his timing couldn’t be better.
BKFC has been on a growth track for six years and looks to be in very good health. However, the success of this promotion begs the question: If removing traditional boxing rules proves successful, is it likely that BKFC will be replaced by another promotion that removes even more rules? This threat is not just hypothetical. The Dirty Boxing Championship, still in development, is expected to combine the heavy punches of traditional boxing with the smaller gloves and ground-pounding techniques of MMA. Plans for the Enhanced Games, due to begin next year, include combat sports, in which boxers can use steroids and other currently illegal performance-enhancing supplements. Feldman isn’t worried about potential competition.
“I wish everyone good luck as it gets more and more people into combat sports,” he said, before adding, “I’ve been doing this for a long time and we have a really good recipe here. … People don’t understand what it takes to build [a sport]. …It’s not easy. It’s hard. This is no joke, man. This requires a a lot of money, one a lot of It takes time, a lot of work, a lot of effort to make that happen. When asked about the specifics of “good tips” for bare-knuckle fighting, Feldman said BKFC has a lower barrier to entry (at least for fans) than other combat sports.
“It’s easy to relate to,” he said, before comparing BKFC’s vocabulary to some of the more niche terms in MMA promotions. “[If] When I’m pitching something to investors, I ask, “Do you know what omoplata is?” [They say] No. Do you know what a D’arce choke is? No. Yes.'”
“Imagine a really good street fight,” Feldman said, “but two really good fighters. well-trained It’s not the man on the street who’s going to do this. He’s right – the explicit training of the fighters does eliminate the possibility of some of the unregulated violence one might see. At the same time, the aforementioned recurring editing makes it possible that the “B” in BKFC more accurately represents “bloody,” which may put off many potential viewers. Then again, if future research confirms previous research on the relationship between bare-knuckle boxing and concussions, then “bleeding” may be preferable to “brain damage.”