When you watch a Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship event, there is the unmistakable influence of professional wrestling permeating throughout the presentation.
From the entrance video screen behind the combatants as they enter, to the types of personalities chosen both to fight and talk on the broadcast, there are clearly reference points rooted in WWE and pro wrestling at large. Fighters are encouraged to be not just verbose, but profane in their media appearances and company press conferences. On-air presenters like Sean Wheelock and Cyrus Fees are excitable and loud in a way that feels familiar to viewers of Monday Night RAW, in a good way.
None of these are bad things. In fact, BKFC’s willingness to lean into showmanship, crassness, and on the occasion, the absurd, is why the company is industry leader in bare knuckle at the moment.
This also isn’t a novel hypothesis—it’s something company owner David Feldman specifically said he was looking to lean into for 2024 just last year. Heck, the company’s biggest annual event is called Knucklemania, an obvious ode to WrestleMania. In particular, he wanted to create “characters” for some of his tabbed breakout stars.
“I had a long talk with Dave Mundell, and we’re gonna start doing some things with Dave Mundell and we’re gonna start creating a real good character with him and taking him out of his shell," said Feldman at a press conference following BKFC 56 in December of 2023. “People don’t know — as good as he fights, as tough as he is, and he’s knocking people out — he’s a really shy guy, and we got to take that out and make him a little bit of a character. So, people want to see him more and we’re gonna do that, we’re going to do that with a lot of fighters."
Anecdotally, when it comes to Mundell, that plan has worked. In fan forums such as OnlyHands on Facebook, one of the larger bare knuckle communities on the internet, there are quite often threads about Mundell, known as “Redneck,” suggesting a groundswell of fandom for him that might not have been there twelve months ago.
But Feldman was even more on the nose when it came to where he wanted to draw influence from.
“We’re bringing in some former WWE pro wrestlers in here just to do character development because I think the only thing we’re missing right now is a little bit of that,” said Feldman. “And we’re going to do that, we’re focusing on that in 2024. We’re focusing on that, we’re focusing on the reality show, we’re focusing on a series we’re doing around the tryouts and prospect series for 2024. We’ve got a lot of really good fighter development things going on (for) 2024.”
On August 3, BKFC will present perhaps its most obvious pro wrestling-influenced event at Sturgis, in the midst of the world’s largest motorcycle rally, with Britain Hart and Taylor Starling headlining BKFC 63.
Readers who grew up in the 90s probably watched pro wrestling for some period of time (the monster ratings at the time suggest that almost everyone had at least a passing interest in it!), and probably remember World Championship Wrestling’s annual pay-per-view Hog Wild, which was later renamed Road Wild.
Just as BKFC has envisioned for this event, Road Wild was a wrestling event held outdoors in the middle of the rally, with wrestlers entering through, and sometimes brawling between the bikers and the bikes themselves. The concept was the baby of Eric Bischoff, Executive Producer and Senior Vice President of WCW, who also happened to be an avid motorcycle rider.
In August of 2020, Bischoff spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Pritchard about coming up with the idea.
“I knew that if we were going to add Sturgis or add an August pay-per-view that it had to be so different than the other eleven pay-per-views that it stood on its own in terms of a brand. That was the biggest reason, but almost as big as that was the fact that being familiar with Sturgis, I saw how much money Dodge trucks, Chevy, Ford, Jim Beam, Coors, Budweiser, you name it—every major advertiser in America that targets men 18-49 was spending a lot of money to be associated with Sturgis from a branding perspective,” said Bischoff. I went ‘Wait a minute… that makes sense.’ I’m doing it and they’re doing it, and the likelihood that I’m able to develop a sponsorship or advertising relationship with some of these clients is pretty high if I’m the only one there doing it in a very popular form of entertainment that targets the same demographic that those advertisers are trying to attract. It was a no-brainer from a business perspective.”
In 1998, Bischoff himself wrestled in the main event, alongside Hulk Hogan, against Diamond Dallas Page and late night host Jay Leno. Naturally, the event helped garner the type of mainstream attention that the company might not have otherwise enjoyed.
BKFC has the opportunity to create a similar dynamic. Imagine Conor McGregor entering the venue on a motorcycle? But beyond the pie-in-the-sky big media splashes BKFC might aim to create, its also seemingly diving right into a pool of prospective viewers. Without any fancy polling data to back this up, it would seem that the audiences overlap, as Bischoff noticed with wrestling and bike culture. Just look at BKFC’s merchandise: The skulls, crossbones, gothic typography, stars and bars are quite similar to how motorcycle apparel is commonly designed.
In other words, BKFC might be going wheels up into the right demographic, and with fights like Hart-Starling and the co-feature between Josh Burns and Sam Shewmaker—two tatted up behemoths—the night may very well be hog wild.
Photo courtesies: BKFC
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