NEWS
Latest news from the underground and bare knuckle fighting world. Event announcements, fighter updates, organization changes, and more.
ABC APPROVES UNIFIED RULES FOR BARE KNUCKLE BOXING
The Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) has approved a unified set of rules for bare knuckle boxing, establishing...
ALEX TERRIBLE AT TOP DOG 37: WHEN METAL MEETS BARE KNUCKLE
Combat sports and heavy metal have always been neighbors. They share a vocabulary of violence, a worship of intensity, and a fan base that overlaps...
ANDREI ARLOVSKI WINS BKFC HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE AT KNUCKLEMANIA VI
Andrei Arlovski added another chapter to one of the most remarkable careers in combat sports history on February 21, 2026, defeating Ben Rothwell via...
THE $25 MILLION BKFC TOURNAMENT: PROMISED FOR MARCH 2026, NOW A 2027 SERIES
The richest prize ever attached to a bare-knuckle competition was announced in July 2025 with a start date of March 2026. That date came and went. No...
BKFC LANDS ON FOX NATION: CONOR MCGREGOR'S 'WORLD'S BADDEST MAN' TOURNAMENT
On July 14, 2026, FOX Nation announced a partnership with Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship and its co-owner Conor McGregor for a new competition...
PHILADELPHIA TO NAPLES TO MONTEVIDEO: BKFC'S THREE-CONTINENT JULY
In a 22-day stretch of July 2026, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship staged events on three continents: BKFC Liberty Brawl at Philadelphia's Xfinity...
BKFC ICE WARS: BARE KNUCKLE FIGHTING ON ICE IS COMING
> **Correction, 16 August 2026.** This piece originally described ICE WARS as a BKFC sub-brand created by BKFC, and described fighters competing in...
BKFC INDIA LAUNCH: TIGER SHROFF PARTNERSHIP & TEAM-BASED LEAGUE
BKFC is entering the world's most populous country with a format designed specifically for the Indian market. The promotion has announced BKFC India,...
BKFC INTERNATIONAL: 13 UK EVENTS, FIRST DUBAI SHOW & 60+ COUNTRIES
BKFC has transformed from a domestic American promotion into a global combat sports brand with a presence in over 60 countries. The expansion has...
BKFC'S UK EXPANSION: ACQUIRING BFBA AND GOING GLOBAL
Bare-knuckle boxing was born in England. James Figg claimed the first championship in 1719. Jack Broughton wrote the first rules in 1743. The London...
BLOOD4BLOOD: ALEX TERRIBLE LAUNCHES BARE KNUCKLE METAL FESTIVAL
Alex Terrible -- the frontman of deathcore heavyweights Slaughter to Prevail and a competitor on Russia's Top Dog FC -- has announced Blood4Blood, a...
HOW CONOR MCGREGOR'S BKFC OWNERSHIP IS CHANGING BARE KNUCKLE FIGHTING FOREVER
In April 2024, Conor McGregor did something that altered the trajectory of bare knuckle fighting more decisively than any single punch thrown in a...
EA SPORTS FIGHT NIGHT REVIVAL: WHEN IS THE NEW BOXING GAME COMING?
The last EA Sports Fight Night game was released in 2011. Since then, boxing fans and gamers have been asking the same question: when is the next one...
HOW FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS BUILT EUROPE'S UNDERGROUND FIGHT SCENE
The connection between European football hooliganism and underground fighting is not metaphorical. It is structural. The organizations, the networks,...
GAMEBRED BKMMA ANNOUNCES $500K TOURNAMENTS FOR 2026
Jorge Masvidal's Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA is coming back with serious money on the table. The promotion has announced a series of $500,000...
JAKE HAGER SIGNS WITH POWER SLAP: FORMER WWE CHAMPION'S NEW CAREER
Jake Hager -- known to millions of WWE fans as Jack Swagger, the All-American American who held the World Heavyweight Championship -- has signed with...
KNUCKLEMANIA ATTENDANCE RECORDS: BIGGER THAN UFC IN PHILADELPHIA
The number that changed the conversation: 17,762. That is how many fans packed into a Philadelphia arena for KnuckleMania, BKFC's flagship annual...
KOTS DOCUMENTARY (2027): EVERYTHING WE KNOW SO FAR
A feature-length documentary about the King of the Streets (KOTS) organization is reportedly in development with a projected 2027 release. Here is...
LETHWEI FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIP LAUNCHES: BKFC GOES TO MYANMAR
BKFC has announced the launch of Lethwei Fighting Championship (Lethwei FC), a new promotion dedicated to Myanmar's ancient bare knuckle fighting...
MORTAL KOMBAT 2 (2026): EVERYTHING ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND FIGHTING SEQUEL
The sequel to 2021's Mortal Kombat is arriving in 2026, bringing one of gaming's most iconic underground fighting tournaments back to the big screen....
HOW COVID-19 FUELED THE UNDERGROUND FIGHTING EXPLOSION
When the world shut down in March 2020, professional combat sports shut down with it. The UFC postponed three consecutive events before retreating to...
POWER SLAP 21: ELLIE DEMPSTER WINS THE FIRST WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT TITLE
Power Slap crowned its first women's flyweight champion on July 10, 2026, when Ellie "Belly" Dempster defeated Zoe Dubois by unanimous decision —...
WHAT THE MEDICAL EVIDENCE ACTUALLY SAYS ABOUT SLAP FIGHTING
Slap fighting has been argued about since Power Slap reached American television in January 2023, mostly on instinct. The published record is thinner...
POWER SLAP SIGNS $15 MILLION PER EVENT SAUDI ARABIA DEAL
Dana White's Power Slap has secured a deal with Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority (GEA) worth $15 million per event, making it one of...
THE RISE OF WOMEN'S BARE KNUCKLE FIGHTING: HOW BKFC BUILT A DIVISION FROM SCRATCH
There was no roadmap. When the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship staged its first sanctioned women's bout in 2018, the concept of women fighting...
HOW STREETBEEFS REACHED 4 MILLION YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBERS
On a YouTube platform where fight channels routinely die, get demonetized, or stall at five figures, Streetbeefs has 4.39 million subscribers. More...
STREETBEEFS EXPANDS: NEW LOCATIONS IN LAS VEGAS AND WASHINGTON
Streetbeefs, the backyard fighting platform founded by Chris "Scarface" Wilmore in Harrisonburg, Virginia, is expanding beyond its home base with new...
HOW TELEGRAM AND ENCRYPTED APPS POWER UNDERGROUND FIGHTING
YouTube built the audience. Telegram runs the operation.
HOW TOP DOG FC RODE THE PANDEMIC TO BECOME RUSSIA'S BIGGEST BARE KNUCKLE PROMOTION
Every combat sports promotion has an origin story. The UFC started with an argument about which martial art was best. BKFC started with a boxing...
HOW TRILLER LOST CONTROL OF BKFC: INSIDE THE SEC FILINGS
Most combat-sports reporting on Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship's corporate side stops at a sentence: Triller owns it, Conor McGregor bought in,...
UFC BJJ: HOW THE UFC LAUNCHED THE YEAR'S BEST JIU-JITSU PROMOTION
The UFC did something in 2025 that no one in the grappling community saw coming: it launched a jiu-jitsu promotion that immediately became the most...
HOW UNDERGROUND FIGHTING ORGANIZATIONS MAKE MONEY: THE COMPLETE BUSINESS MODEL
Underground fighting is a business. That statement surprises people who imagine the scene as purely spontaneous -- guys settling grudges in backyards...
DEATHS AND SERIOUS INJURIES IN UNDERGROUND FIGHTING: WHAT WE KNOW
Every underground fighting organization exists under the same shadow: the possibility that someone will die. It has not happened often enough to shut...
THE LEGAL STATUS OF UNDERGROUND FIGHTING ACROSS COUNTRIES: A COMPLETE GUIDE
The legality of underground fighting is not a yes-or-no question. It is a spectrum that varies by country, by state, by the specific format of the...
UNDERGROUND FIGHTING NEWS ROUNDUP: MARCH 2026
Everything that happened in the underground and bare knuckle fighting world this month. From major tournament results to organizational updates and...
VICTOR ORTIZ TRADES GLOVES FOR BARE KNUCKLE: INSIDE THE BKB SIGNING
Former WBC welterweight world champion Victor "Vicious" Ortiz has signed a multi-year, multi-fight deal with BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing, the Miami-based...
THE GROWING ROLE OF WOMEN IN UNDERGROUND AND BARE KNUCKLE FIGHTING
For most of its history, underground fighting was an exclusively male domain. The backyard brawls, the parking lot scraps, the concrete fights in...
HOW THE YOUTUBE ALGORITHM BUILT THE UNDERGROUND FIGHTING INDUSTRY
Every industry has a creation myth. Silicon Valley has the garage. Hollywood has the nickelodeon. The underground fighting industry has a...