BKFC is bare knuckle, but the rulebook is thoroughly modern

The company behind the four letters

BKFC was founded in April 2018 by David Feldman, a former professional boxer, and it is based in Philadelphia (BKFC; Wikipedia). Its first show, BKFC: The Beginning, ran on June 2, 2018, at the Cheyenne Ice and Events Center in Wyoming under the Wyoming Combative Sports Commission (SweetwaterNOW). The claim the company still leads with is that this was the first legal, regulated and sanctioned bare knuckle event in the United States since 1889.

It was a modest stage for a claim that big. The pay-per-view cost $29.95. The 12-bout card opened an eight-man heavyweight tournament, and it also carried what is recorded as the first American-sanctioned women's bare-knuckle fight in modern history, won by Bec Rawlings of Australia (Wikipedia).

Then it grew quickly. By December 2025, BKFC had held 142 events by Wikipedia's running count, which I treat as approximate rather than official. It bought the Bare Fist Boxing Association in September 2022 to create BKFC UK, which is why a Manchester card shares a numbered list with shows in Florida. TrillerNet took a majority stake in February 2022, Conor McGregor and his company became part owners in 2024, and a three-year DAZN deal began in October 2024 (Wikipedia).

What bare knuckle allows, and what it bans

Here is the contrast in the headline. The hands are not naked. Fighters wrap them, and BKFC's own rule is that the wrap must stop one inch short of the knuckle (BKFC). The Association of Boxing Commissions, which approved unified bare-knuckle rules at its August 2023 convention in Las Vegas (BKFC), caps it at 12 yards of soft gauze per hand, held by no more than 10 yards of surgical tape, with no tape within an inch of the knuckles and nothing past the knuckle when the fist is closed (ABC rules).

The striking surface is skin. Everything behind it is supported.

BKFC layers its own filter on top. Only established professionals in boxing, MMA, kickboxing or Muay Thai may compete, and its referees and judges must have extensive professional combat sports experience (BKFC). The clinch rule tends to surprise newcomers most. Under the ABC text, a fighter may hold an opponent by the back of the neck and keep punching to any legal target. That is written permission, not a gray area.

A 1743 idea in the middle of a round ring

The ring is round. BKFC calls it the Squared Circle: a circular four-rope ring with two scratch lines, and each fighter starts every round with a front foot on a line, a ritual the company calls Toe the Line (Wikipedia). The scratch goes back to Jack Broughton's rules of 1743. Our primer on the Squared Circle walks through how that works in a modern round, including the rulebook's tidy fix for a ring without corners.

When the company announced its first show in May 2018, Feldman framed the whole project as a bridge between centuries:

Why the gap ran from 1889 to 2018

The date in the pitch points to one hot afternoon. On July 8, 1889, John L. Sullivan beat Jake Kilrain at Richburg, Mississippi, near Hattiesburg, in the last world heavyweight championship prizefight decided with bare knuckles, fought under London Prize Ring rules (Wikipedia). About 3,000 people rode special trains to a location kept secret because the fight was illegal (Wikipedia). It ran 75 rounds in heat reported near 100 degrees (WDAM). Kilrain's corner gave up at the start of the 76th.

Three years later, on September 7, 1892, Sullivan lost his title to James J. Corbett in New Orleans in the 21st round, under the Marquess of Queensberry rules and wearing gloves (Wikipedia). Gloves won the argument for the next 126 years.

The part I like best comes afterward. Sullivan and Kilrain became good friends later in life, and when Sullivan died in 1918, Kilrain was a pallbearer at his funeral (Wikipedia). Seventy-five rounds, and the story still ends with one man helping carry the other.

What the Manchester card showed about the format

The BKFC 94 results read like a demonstration of the rulebook. Till and Romero went the full five rounds. Jack Cullen and Dave Mundell were first scored a draw, fought an extra round, and Cullen took a split decision for the BKFC middleweight title, which fits inside the six-round ceiling. Three other bouts ended by doctor's stoppage with the clock at exactly 2:00 of a round (Cageside Press; BKFC).

The results list does not explain those stoppages. A stoppage logged at the two-minute mark reads to me like a ringside physician calling it at the bell, which is plausible in a sport where cuts are the most common injury, but I could not confirm the circumstances of each one.

My read on the throwback

The 1889 story is good marketing, and it also happens to be true. It is not what makes BKFC work as a sanctioned sport, though. The rulebook does that: wrap limits measured to the inch, professionals only, a hard cap on rounds, and a line that says no referee or promoter can override a ringside physician's recommendation to stop a bout (ABC rules).

Whether bare knuckles are safer or riskier than gloves is a harder question, and the evidence is thinner than either side's fans suggest. A 2021 study of 141 sanctioned bouts found cuts far more common than concussions. We lay out what it measured, and what it could not, in our bare knuckle versus gloved boxing comparison.

So here is the plain answer. BKFC is a regulated, punches-only promotion in a round ring that borrows its costume from 1743 and its rulebook from 2023. Romero learned what that meant over five rounds in Manchester. He still heard the final bell at 49, and a wrestler finishing on his feet in a sport that banned his best weapon is a small triumph of its own.