ICE WARS is a combat sports promotion in which fighters wear hockey skates and jerseys and punch each other bare-fisted on a real ice surface, inside a 900-square-foot boarded enclosure the promotion calls the Ice Box. Clinching and wrestling are prohibited. It is a separate company from BKFC, though the two carried joint branding for a period after BKFC took a stake in 2025.
Origins and Usage
The concept traces to a 2006 hockey-enforcers event in Prince George, British Columbia, staged by Charlie Nama, who later founded Ice Wars International. BKFC acquired a stake in 2025 and the events ran as BKFC ICE WARS for roughly a year. The promotion now presents itself as Bare Knuckle Ice Wars, with former UFC middleweight Ian Heinisch as president. Full detail is in the Bare Knuckle Ice Wars guide.
Because of the shared branding period, "ICE WARS" and "BKFC ICE WARS" are both used in listings and fight databases, and older coverage frequently and wrongly describes it as a BKFC sub-brand or as bare knuckle boxing staged in a hockey arena. Competitors do fight on the ice itself.
In Underground Fighting
Ice Wars formalises the one part of hockey that has always sat outside the rulebook of every other sport. Its talent pipeline runs mainly from junior and minor-league hockey — enforcers and heavy-penalty-minute players — rather than from boxing or MMA gyms, because skating backwards under fire is a hockey skill rather than a fighting one. The promotion has clustered its cards in Alberta, largely at River Cree Resort & Casino on Enoch Cree Nation land, and made its US national television debut in the ESPN8: The Ocho block on 8 August 2026.
Related Terms
- KnuckleMania -- BKFC's flagship annual super event
- Marquee Event -- A promotion's biggest show
- Promotion -- The organizing company behind a fighting event
See Also
- BKFC -- Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, parent organization
- Bare Knuckle -- Fighting without gloves