Two of the very best fighters on the planet collide next weekend in Utah, a fight both champion and challenger have wanted for over a year.
Around this time last year, Jade Masson-Wong posted a seemingly innocuous photo of herself in the swimming pool on Facebook. It wasn’t a post related to her career as a bare knuckle boxer in any way, not a boast about her training or how ready she was, just a glimpse into her daily life for her many social media followers.
The top comment on the photo? A message from pound-for-pound queen Christine Ferea, just two words and two emojis: You’re next (followed by a wink and a heart).
Masson-Wong replied “can’t wait,” with a flame emoji and a kissy face.
Next weekend, Ferea will get what she asked for, a bout with Masson-Wong atop BKFC 65 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Masson-Wong wasn’t actually next for Ferea—she beat Bec Rawlings in a rematch in December of last year—but she came pretty close to fully actualizing her Facebook request.
Purely as a fight, it’s a mouthwatering matchup between two of the five best women’s bare knuckle boxers on the planet at the moment. Ferea’s list of victories includes a good chunk of the current BKFC women’s flyweight rankings, including Rawlings twice, Britain Hart twice and Taylor Starling. Both Hart and Starling also appear in Bare Knuckle Nation’s pound-for-pound rankings.
It's a credit to Ferea that she asked for this fight specifically. Albeit on a smaller scale, Ferea finds herself in a similar position to longstanding dominant champions in professional boxing: They don’t need to call anyone out, everyone else will do that work for them. As a result, most pound-for-pound queens and kings play a deferential game in speaking with the media, asserting that they are the ones in charge and that they’ll pick their opponent when they’re ready. Essentially, “they need me more than I need them.”
But this is on a smaller scale, and bare knuckle boxers literally can’t afford to behave like that. Their popularity and the sport’s success can’t sustain on hype alone, it thrives on action and as much exposure as possible, as do its participants. Rather than being a passive leader, Ferea has actively sought out the most compelling challenger available, and one of the sport’s best candidates to be a crossover star.
Anecdotally, it’s worked. Fans have spotted Bucked Up Energy-branded life-sized cardboard cutouts of Ferea and Masson-Wong in participating 7-Eleven locations. More centrist MMA sites are covering bare knuckle and starting to take notice of both Ferea and Masson-Wong, both because of their brilliance and also, the social media eyeballs that come along with reporting on Masson-Wong.
Photo Courtesy: BKFC
On a national level, Masson-Wong’s success has been vital to the growth of bare knuckle boxing in Canada. In speaking with Bare Knuckle Nation earlier this year, BKFC heavyweight Tyler Tremblett, who hails from Cold Lake, Alberta, admitted that Masson-Wong was the face of bare knuckle in this country. Not only has her success garnered attention within Canada and on its media outlets, but it also showed a pathway for boxers and MMA fighters to make a transition and find infinitely more exposure and success than they might on the lower ends of the local boxing and MMA scene.
Masson-Wong’s athletic career started in gymnastics, before she took up kickboxing and boxing as a teenager, and then MMA at the age of 18. After a 3-2 start to her MMA career, the global pandemic hit and opportunities to fight locally in Canada evaporated immediately. According to Masson-Wong, her agent told her to consider bare knuckle, which essentially ran without many delays even in the absolute height of the pandemic. In October of 2021, she made her debut and stopped stalwart Crystal Pittman, announcing the arrival of a new star in the sport overnight.
"I prefer it to MMA, I feel more comfortable, it's more natural, I feel free. It seems like I'm more comfortable, less stressed because I feel more in control of my means,” Masson-Wong told Le Journal De Montreal earlier this year.
Aside from her stoppage loss in her second bout against Christine Vicens, Masson-Wong has been in complete control her whole career, dominating Starling and blowing out Gabrielle Roman in BKFC’s Canadian debut in March of this year.
Despite her rapid ascent, the reality is that bare knuckle can’t provide a living for Masson-Wong all on its own. That said, her success within it has certainly aided her success in other avenues, as she described to Le Journal.
“I can’t live on (fight purses) alone. I have sponsors and I have an OnlyFans account that allows me to pay for my training camps. Fighting performances help me get more subscribers,” said Masson-Wong. “I decide what I do, I have a limit, there is nudity, but no porn. I am comfortable with my body. I also have a house that I rent when I am in training camp, and I have a body piercing clientele."
A victory over Ferea would almost certainly be a life-altering event, one that might change her economic reality dramatically. That, of course, is one one deserves if they’re to beat the very best fighter on the planet in a fight without gloves. The danger involved is implicit, and Masson-Wong told reporter James Lynch last week that she already knows the fight she wants, and the kind she expects.
Top Photo Courtesy of BKFC.
コメント