WARRIORS HEART doc about why boxers are turning to bare knuckle

BKB is the new king of combat sports for me personally. Has really opened my eyes to how much difference not having even small mma gloves on makes in a real fight.

In some ways it sucks because it has shown a light on how artificial modern boxing is, and how artificial some of the revered heirchary is in boxing, even historically. And now that Ive seen it it can't be unseen. (For me).

There's also something just different about the the level of grit and hardness it takes, that reminds me of what used to draw me to boxing, is on another level in BKB.

Watch Hunts last fight.... the level of mental and physical toughness to win that fight, and the level of hard you have to be, for me personally it really 'seperates the men from the boys' so to speak.

Also for all the talk about it preying on the vulnerable, thats one perspective, the other perspective is its giving opportunities for people who dont have better opportunities elsewhere, and are likely thankful for the chance to put paychecks in their families bank account doing what was for them the best financial opportunity they had.

Not to mention if that bothers someone that bad, hate to say it but combat sports has always been done primarily by the lowest and most vulnerable classes of society.

As for the damage they take, my view is that many boxers tend to take more brain damage then bkb guys do, and I imagine medical science would likely support that notion. I find it hard to believe that getting punched 160 times over 36 minutes, then 70 times over 10 minutes.

The worst view of all though is this alarmingly prevalent opinion that it should be banned. Telling two grown men theyre not allowed to fight eachother and get paid for it, because YOU find the sport too violent, is absolutely wild to me. If its not someone's preference or you dont like it, cool... dont watch it, dont support it, ect. But to go beyond that and afvocate for its banning?

Ill never understand the thinking behind feeling you should be able to dictate to other men what they can and can't do that has nothing to do with you and isnt hurting anyone else.

 

Hate slap "fighting".

Wouldn't try telling other grown men theyre not allowed to participate in it because I dont like it though.

 

The promotion is only 8 years old. Exactly how many career fights and "longevity" do you expect people in an 8 year old promotion to have.

Hunt has 16 fights. He had a serious injury to his arm when falling wrong that caused like a year suspension or more or hed likely be at 18.

when its all said and done he likely winds up fighting bkb successfully for a decade.

Undoubtedly would be longer then that had he been younger when bkfc was created.


Not every sport is made to have a 20 year career in. So what.
Exactly how much longevity does a sport need to have to be acceptable to you.

 

Most of this is baseless conjecture (mental health issues, cant win at BK, fighters will need care because of BK, ect), the rest of it (participants recieving brain damage arent the only ones effected) can be applied to boxing as much if not more then it can BK.

I think if someone cares that much about the impact of fighting on a fighters health, then boxing probably isnt the place for them.
And they should be holding boxing to the same standard as they do BK.

It is entirely plausible, backed by objective data, that boxing is even more traumatic on a fighters long term health then BK is. In BK you take less punches, for shorter times, for less fights.

The idea a typical boxers brain is doing that much better then a BK fighters when theyre taking more punches over longer time frames over the course of more fights, is completely baseless.

How many tragedies has boxing had in just the last 10 years.

I think anyone championing boxing over BK is being pretty biased and hypocritical. This entire sport is in the shadow of multiple tragedies every other year that we as its fan base say a couple 'RIP Champ' and then gloss over and look forward to the next best matchup we can while ragging on refs that stop the fights too early.

I understand BK being too violent for someone. It is a violent sport and it comes with gnarly damage.

But for someone to cross over from 'eh, i dont care for BK, its too violent for my taste' into 'omg this is so much worse then boxing for a fighters long term health this needs to be banned' is a wide divide and I think if they cared as much about the health of fighters as they say they do then they probably shouldnt be boxing fans in the first place. I think most boxers with observable brain damage, severe CTE, let alone the boxers that have been rendered vegetables, and the ones outright killed, would have traded the visually gross damage that comes from a quick BK fight over the deep brain trauma that can come from 25 minute boxing beatings.

 

There is no objective basis whatsoever to the notion that BK is 'a lot more dangerous' then boxing as a whole. Counting knockdowns isnt the metric you think it is to gauge overall danger level of the sport. The amount of compounding brain trauma that boxers accumulate over the course of 20, 30, or 36 minutes with no knockdowns can easily dwarf the amount of brain trauma that a 10 minute BK fight has that has a couple knockdowns.

Its the accumilation of brain damage over the course of the fight that is the danger to fighters. Not individual severity of individual shots. Its why almost all of the tragedies in boxing happen after long beatings or prolonged fights, and practically never after an early scary looking knockout.

The 'safer' nature of boxing is often the underlying detriment to the fighters actual safety.


Lets look at some of the most recent tragedies in boxing. Im sure Ill miss plenty but should be a decent sample here...

Eubank vs Blackwell : coma : No knockdowns I dont think : Over 27 minutes of total fighting.
Sabriel vs Dadashev : killed : No knockdowns I dont think : Over 30 minutes of total fighting.
Conwell vs Day : killed : took punches for over 15 minutes after being knocked down the first time : Over 27 minutes of total fighting.
Westgarth vs Spelmen : killed : knocked down towards end of fight : actually won his fight : 30 minutes of total fighting.
Mntungwa vs Buthelezi : killed : no knockdowns : almost 30 minutes of total fighting.


The common denominator here isnt knockdowns, its the duration the fighters are taking punches for. Notice how theres no 2 round wars here? Notice how nobody has ever been ko'd so hard in the first couple rounds that they die? On average, its not the single, fight ending punches that are the danger.

And trust that this trend would continue (fight duration being the common denominator) if we continued to go back to the other prominent tragedies in boxing, kovalev vs simakov, perez vs mago, eubank vs watson, ect, ect

The notion that these deaths would still have taken place in a 10 minute BK fight, where you are actually less likely to take more punches due to the fight stopping nature of BK punches (from swelling, cuts, or from being kod naturally... ending the fight when it should be ended) and the 10 minute fight cap, would be baseless projection to say the least.

A brain is supposed to be knocked down or out when hit with a big punch. A face is supposed to become ravaged from strikes. And these natural elements, while looking a lot worse superficially, aid in BK fights having natural endings much sooner then boxing does.

A brain is not meant to be battered for 30 minutes from punches that are hard enough to damage it, but padded enough to allow the beating to be a drawn out prolonged unnatural beating, where every round compounds upon the damage done in the previous rounds.

Boxing also makes it easier for hurt fighters to continue fighting on with an already concussed brain, taking rounds and rounds and rounds of additional damage on top of the concussion they already have. This prolonging is directly aided by the nature of large gloves, and is made worse by the duration of fight times in boxing.

Boxing allows for the unnatural prolonging of beatings.

That is what leads to most of the brain damage, and that is what leads to most of the tragedy.

 

Not really. Justin died due to injuries sustained from his fall. falling on his head from the ko injured his spine. not from brain trauma from the punch or from the direct nature of BKB fights.

His injury could have happened just as easily in any combat sport and isnt represenative of BKB being uniquely dangerous.

Again, he died of spinal complications because he landed wrong when he was kod.
Thats not equivalent to having a boxer fall into a coma from prolonged punishment due directly to elements unique to boxing, or even equivalent to if a quick one punch ko causes a brain bleed.
His was a freak accident.

Your last statement is baseless conjecture just like everything else aimed at bkb in this thread.