Julio Tanori vs Mark Irwin 1 was one of the fights that put BYB on the map!
Every once in a while, a fight comes along in the world of bare knuckle that helps increase the sport’s visibility. In the brief history of the modern incarnation of bare knuckle boxing, a large, and perhaps the key aspect to the sport’s growth is simply word of mouth about how exciting and frankly, how brutal the action can be.
Of course, the first example of this was the Bobby Gunn-Richie Stewart bare knuckle pay-per-view that prompted a mix of outrage, excitement, and even political intervention from John McCain. It was the first “visible” bare knuckle bout, really, since Sullivan-Kilrain. Later that decade, with the sport legitimized, several fights have broken through into the mainstream. Taylor Starling-Charisa Sigala received mainstream attention in 2021 for its brutality, and prompted a silly conversation on major outlets about whether women “should” take part in bare knuckle. Lorenzo Hunt and Mike Richman saw their fight cross over into at least the wider combat sport space for its jaw-dropping momentum shift and cinematic finish. Likewise, earlier this year, Alfredo Angulo and Jeremiah Riggs went viral for their bonkers brawl on KnuckleMania, in part because the entire 93-second fight fit neatly into a Twitter and Instagram video for easy distribution.
For BYB, one of its “crossover moments” came in the form of the 2023 lightweight title brawl between Mark Irwin and Julio Tanori.
Let’s be honest: One of the main reasons this fight received as much attention as it did is because of the grotesque hematoma Irwin started to develop very early in the fight. Photos and videos of Irwin, whose nickname is The Shark, looking like a hammerhead shark with a bulbous growth circulated quickly. As tends to happen when images like this go around, it prompted debate about whether bare knuckle should be legal all over again on outlets like ESPN, with analysts such as Stephen A. Smith weighing in as he did following Starling-Sigala. The debate about legality, of course, is a losing battle at this point as states across the country are jumping on board, and with California now sanctioning bare knuckle contests, it’s likely not something that will go back in the drawer any time soon.
For those who are never going to be comfortable watching bare knuckle, the image of Irwin was merely validation of feelings they weren’t going to back down from anyway. But for others, it prompted curiosity about the fight itself.
Needless to say, anyone who checked the fight out and did so with an open mind was not disappointed.
The fight was named 2023 Fight of the Year by the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame, and justifiably so. Tanori and Irwin showed what the sport of bare knuckle can be when everything is clicking all at once: Skill, speed, violence. Some bare knuckle fights have the brutality that some fans crave, but it comes as a result of reckless sloppiness. Others have good technique but ultimately fail to live up to the bare knuckle bloody promise.
In special cases, bare knuckle gives you the speed and technique one expects from gloved boxing, and also the outright violence that remains a drawing feature for the sport as well. Irwin and Tanori was one of those cases.
Moreover, it helped create a potential star for the sport moving forward in Tanori, who in winning the fight became the youngest world champion in boxing, gloved or otherwise, at just 21 years of age.
Fighters like Tanori are crucial not only to the functional growth of the sport, but also to its perception. As fighters from other disciplines such as Sean Strickland lambaste bare knuckle as a sport where washed up fighters go to cash their final paychecks, fighters like Tanori, Kai Stewart and others are showing that this is a young man’s sport, if the young men want it to be. Tanori has a fledgling career in gloved boxing as well, but like Stewart, has found a particular niche in bare knuckle.
Tanori represents the potential future of BYB, a fighter it can build upon, and one that could turn out to be one of its first homegrown from start to finish stars.
If that is to happen, Tanori will have to go right back into the fire once again, as he’ll face Irwin in a rematch at BYB 31 in Denver, CO. The two will rightfully get the main event slot, with Tanori’s BYB lightweight title up for grabs.
“They should have stopped the first with that big ass hematoma on his head,” said Tanori in a statement provided by BYB. “I’ll make sure he won’t feel much pain in this one. I’ll tuck him in and put him to sleep. One-punch KO. Like It happened in our first fight. Literally, the first punch to land.”
The roles were reversed, as the usually verbose Irwin kept it short and sweet in response to the usually less braggadocios Tanori.
“This ain’t over. It’s just getting started,” said Irwin. “I’m getting my belt back. Get ready for the rematch of the greatest fight in bare knuckle history.”
Photo courtesy: BYB Extreme
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