Fenway Park? David Feldman and the BKFC have come a long way in 8 years

The first BKFC was held at an ice rink in Cheyenne, Wyoming, back in 2018. One of the fighters who stripped off the gloves for what was among the first sanctioned bare-knuckle boxing events since the Pleistocene was Estevan Payan, who once told me during his UFC days that he’d be OK if eye-gouging were legal.

>The early signals were that, when it came to BKFC, only sadists need apply.

>Yet of the 20 fighters on that first card there was only one documented case of a broken hand and a single reported broken nose, which BKFC founder David Feldman figured was pretty darn good all things considered. Better yet, enough people tuned in to give the enterprise hope.

>“A lot of people said, how do you measure success [for that first show],” Feldman told me at the time. “We said, it’s not in the pay-per-view buys, it’s not in the revenue — it’s what’s the people’s reaction after the first fight. I couldn’t have paid to get people to give us a better reaction. It’s been unbelievable.”

BKFC has come a long way since its debut show in June 2018.Alex Menendez via Getty ImagesI’ll admit to being dubious that BKFC would last beyond a year or two. Yet Feldman took his “baby” from Wyoming to Mississippi, then to Florida and Mexico, with pitstops in Salina, Kansas and Phuket, Thailand. By the early 2020s, BKFC was showing up in Canada and England and at ports all over the world.

>This past week, the BKFC announced — via its brand ambassador and part owner, Conor McGregor — that its squared circle is headed to historic Fenway Park in Boston come August. If the UFC could go to the White House and Turki Alalshikh could post a ring in front of the Pyramids of Giza, Feldman was going to bring his gang of throwbacks to the place where Carlton Fisk hit a walk-off for the ages in the 1975 World Series.

>The best part for Feldman is, BKFC is a welcome guest at the historic park. Fenway wanted to do business with the BKFC.

>“We didn't just go in there and rent the place,” Feldman says. “We're actually partnering with them on this, and that's what makes it even more special. And that's like what makes this [America] 250 fight [in Philadelphia] special, too, is because they're asking us to be a part of it. We're not begging anymore. We're not knocking on doors only to have them slammed in our face. They're actually asking us now, and that's just so amazing. The feeling is so amazing because it tells you that hard work really does pay off.”

>The “250 fight” Feldman is referring to is the Liberty Brawl, which takes place at the Xfinity Mobile Arena on July 3. Among the party favors that night will be an experimentation with the “one-round fight,” a concept that does away with pleasantries in incentivizing a brawl. It’s a miniature tournament of one-round wars with $100,000 dangling in the balance.

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>Innovations such as these not only created a lane for BKFC, it has distinguished itself to the point of inspiring imitators. Feldman says there are a couple hundred copycat bare-knuckle promotions out there these days, which means he’s come a long way from being a fight game pariah.

> Which brings us back to Fenway Park, the old “band box,” as John Updike famously called it, and one of America’s great sporting landmarks.

>Nearly 100 years ago, names like Jack Sharkey and James J. Braddock boxed on the field there, going back into the fabric of American history. The last time anybody boxed on the field was in 1956, when Tony DeMarco decisioned Vince Martinez. There were boxing events held at Fenway over the last year promoted by the Nolan Bros., including the WBC United States Silver title match between Jahyae Brown and Anthony Vieira, but those were held on the concourse.

>BKFC’s event will take place in the shadow of the Green Monster.

>“I mean, I wouldn't have done it on the concourse,” Feldman says. “Nothing against the Nolan Brothers, they’re great guys, but I actually said, ‘You're not going to hide me in a concourse underneath the stairway somewhere.’ I mean, we're either doing a field or we're not. And he said, ‘Of course we're doing the field.’ And I was like, ‘Let's do it.’

>“It wasn't easy though. It was not easy to get done because you had to deal with Major League Baseball and to deal with Massachusetts to get legal and everything that that took. But at the end of the day, August 29, we're going to put on an amazing event at Fenway Park, bare-knuckle fighting on the field.”

A general view of the Green Monster during a game at Fenway Park in Boston.Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox via Getty ImagesThe names who have appeared in BKFC over the years are many, including the face of the franchise Mike Perry, the “King of Violence” himself. Others are Michael “Venom” Page, Pauli Malignaggi, Austin Trout, Andrei Arlovski, Ben Rothwell, Eddie Alvarez and countless big names within the combat sports space.

>The looming question is if we’ll one day see Conor McGregor in a bare-knuckle contest, which is something the Irishman has expressed interest in. McGregor has two fights left on his UFC contract, one of which will take place on July 11 at UFC 329 in Las Vegas.

>Feldman will be seated in the front row for his return, sticking by his man.

>“His next fight is a couple of weeks away, whenever that is, and after that fight happens, then he's only one fight away,” Feldman says. “And then it obviously depends on how good he looks. I think that he's got the right guy in front of him on July 11, in Max Holloway. I think it's his style that he can take this guy out of there. Then he's going to have another big fight — probably in March or April of 2027.

>“And then that's it. I mean, it only makes sense for him to fight here. He'll get paid the same money, and plus he's going to increase equity stake in BKFC, so it only makes sense for him. And man, he’s more motivated than ever, texting every day about BKFC now, tweeting about the Fenway Park saying, ‘I'm there. I will be in attendance.’ So just those kind of things are very special to us because love him, hate him, doesn't matter — when Conor McGregor talks, people do listen.”

Conor McGregor is a part-owner of BKFC.Leonardo Fernandez via Getty ImagesIt’s been a subtle, yet definitive run for Feldman, whose BKFC has been running multiple events per month. In the past eight years there have been 157 events, with the most recent taking place last week in Hammond, Indiana. The Liberty Brawl goes down this Friday in Feldman’s home of Philadelphia, before they move to Naples, Italy a couple of weeks later.

>They even have a “Bruise Cruise” planned for January 2027, a three-day combat sports festival aboard a cruise ship running from Miami to the Bahamas. Booze, fights and Dramamine, what could be better?

>But doing a card at a landmark like Fenway? BKFC has come a long way from the ice rinks of Cheyenne.

>“It's hard because the grind is real,” Feldman says. “This is a real grind every week, week in and week out, putting on events, building fighters. Again, we're not another combat sports promotion. We started a sport, so we had to get it accepted. We had to get the perception changed to what it was. So to do all that week in and week out, while still understanding what you're really doing, it's not easy.

>“But every once in a while, we’ll be on our meetings and I’ll make the whole team do this, I'll say, ‘Punch in BKFC, go to news and look what they're writing about us.’ You need to know where you're going. You can't just go there without a direction. You need to know where you're going. And when you can read what people are saying about some of the things we’ve been able to accomplish, it makes the team feel good about itself.”