Reflections: The curious case of bare knuckle boxing

Reflections: Bare Faced Cheeks

GBN's Scottish scribe, Donald C Stewart, explores the rise of bare knuckle boxing in combat sports.

I listened to Robert Smith, the General Secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control on the Open Bell podcast with Matt Christie. I was interested to hear him say that he didn't like bare knuckle boxing.

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan either.

I don't know why. After all, it is a combat sport. It is boxing and the increasing numbers of names that had world titles or fought at the highest level in gloved boxing coming into the sport should make it more of an attractive viewing experience.

I also understand though, there are many, unlike me, seduced by its appeal. The Observer’s, Andrew Hankinson wrote extensively about bareknuckle boxing in an article after spending time with former heavyweight (BKFC) world champion Mike Terrill, a strong proponent of the bareknuckle version of boxing about the obvious safety pluses.

It's not gloved, meaning less blows hitting the head, punches are sorer therefore less damage done to eye sockets and the like. It has a brutality which attracts Gareth A Davis, the mainstream poster boy for bareknuckle boxing at the moment - or at least he is quite rightly, riding the opportunity of making a few shillings out of the popularity that bareknuckle boxing has. Nothing wrong in that.

Having listened to the podcast and then reading the Observer article one name jumped out at me, not realising that he had stepped into that world.

The name was Jay McFarlane.

McFarlane has a very interesting backstory as he epitomises many different versions of a boxer. The fight that springs to my mind, was his fight at the SSC Hydro in Glasgow, way back in February 2022 where he was up against Nick Campbell for the Scottish Area Heavyweight title. Now Scotland's not great at heavyweights. There are very few big guys out there who epitomize the Scottish boxing scene – we tend to favour little guys.

This slugfest between Campbell and McFarlane caught the ire and anger of former cruiserweight world champion and sky pundit, Johnny Nelson. Having endured the fight, he was live on Sky shaking his head saying surely there must be better than this out there. To be fair he was right, though called a contest, but it was far from being one. In fact, calling it a slug fest is an insult to slugs.

And so, McFarlane, now a bareknuckle guy, made an astonishing confession.

To be honest, first time I read it, I skimmed over it. Why? Because the story around McFarlane is pretty out there and includes being brought up in a Caribbean nursery, hospitalized after being stabbed, being an alcoholic, drug addict and drug dealer – it was a drug deal that went wrong when he was stabbed. The confession seemed no more outlandish than any I have heard in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But the revelation, after he fought Terrill, and had been stopped caught me and I had to reread it. At one point in the fight against Terrill, McFarlane had literally asked the referee to stop the contest, whilst looking distressed and clearly displaying difficulty in the ring. The referee obliged and called the whole thing off.

McFarlane was quoted in the article, that the reason he did that was because he was unable to see.

I shall leave it to his Instagram post to explain why.

“I’ve not been completely honest over the last few years in regards to my medical situation. I’ve had nine procedures done on my right eye that I lost vision in and none have been successful. So I can only see out of my left side. I was caught with an inside that scratched my eye, and for 20 minutes there, I just had complete darkness and I couldn’t see. It’s why I had to be escorted to the medics. I’m not one for being scared or shitting myself, but for 20 minutes there, my arsehole collapsed. Thankfully, thank God, I’ve now got some vision back and I can see. It’s hard to say this, but I now know that that was my last roll of the dice. I can’t go through that again.”

Is passing medicals to get into a bare knuckle ring a soft touch?

Now I am not suggesting that is easy to lie or cheat your way through some of the processes. There is a hope that people will not go into a ring to earn pennies when they happen to have serious issues with their health.

And that leads you to, if Robert Smith doesn't like bareknuckle boxing, who sanctions the fights?

It would appear to be US-based International Sport Karate and Kickboxing Association. How's that work? It's a different discipline.

It leads us to a fairly legitimate question – how long before a real tragedy happens?

Now, Jay McFarlane is a guy I've never met. I've always been fascinated by him not just because of the backstory but also his career. He fought on a Gennady Golovkin undercard in Madison Square Gardens, and had Dave Allen spend some time with him when he realised that McFarlane was mentally struggling. There's a lot of things going on in McFarlane's life, none of which I have sufficient knowledge of to make comment upon his journey but surely his revelation means that somebody somewhere has to look at the bareknuckle world and start to ask questions?

If it is not asking questions, then perhaps bare knuckle ought to come up with some kind of structure and body behind it that would ensure that the people fighting in those trigon rings are safe.

That's a hope. It should be a promise.

Otherwise, it's a simple barefaced cheek that this is happening and endangering people's lives. Are the people behind bareknuckle boxing just out for a quick buck or do they actually care? If someone does not get a grip, then there should be no opportunity to turn the other cheek.