Dave Reardon: Bare Knuckle fighting is entertaining — and not as dangerous as it might seem

I had two burning questions for the people who put on the first sanctioned Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship card in Hawaii on Saturday.

1. Are all the fighters OK?

2. I couldn’t take my eyes off the fights, extremely entertaining — when is the next show?

Answer to No. 2 first:

“Give me some time to breathe,” veteran Hawaii combat sports promoter T. Jay Thompson said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Let me say this, though: There will be a next one.”

The answer to No. 1 is yes, they are all OK, at least for now. There was a lot of blood, but only one fighter needed transport to a hospital, and he was treated and released.

The “for now” part is because most people now know that combat sports athletes run the risk of long-term damage due to concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

But, despite the brutal optics of bare knuckle fighting, studies indicate it may be safer for fighters’ brains than traditional boxing and mixed martial arts — assuming proper regulation and medical supervision, which by all indications, were present Saturday at the Blaisdell.

Kudos to the promotion, the referees, the ringside doctors and everyone else involved — especially those involved in deciding when a fighter had enough, the refs and docs. They have the most important and hardest job in all of sports.

The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs deserves credit, too, for approving the first event of its kind in Hawaii.

Victims of the recent local flooding will benefit from 5% of the proceeds from Saturday’s card, Thompson said. Good call.

Jane Estioko, Carie Ann Aana and Thompson’s business partner, Tracey Lesetar-Smith, were key players in making it all come together.

“These women are absolutely fantastic. They’re an incredible group, each of them smarter than I am,” Thompson said.

And ring announcer Jeff Houston provided substance and style.

Appearances can be deceiving, especially when the gloves come off.

Traditional boxing and MMA gloves protect the fighters’ hands, not their opponents’ heads. Gloves do not slow down the concussive force of the brain moving within the head.

“Headguards should not be relied upon to reduce the risk of concussion or other traumatic brain injury. They have not been shown to prevent these types of injuries in combat sports or other sports,” according to the Association of Ringside Physicians.

The fighters know that if they punch as hard as they can without gloves and hit bone they risk breaking their hands.

Concussion rates are significantly lower for BKFC fights than gloved fighting, such as traditional boxing and MMA. Part of this is because the fights are shorter, but the difference is significant. Data consistently indicates that BKFC fighters are concussed at less than half the rate of gloved fighters.

The sample size is much smaller, but modern, sanctioned bare knuckle fighting also has a much lower number of fatalities than the combat sports it is most closely associated with.

In the nine years of BKFC’s existence, one competitor has died due to injuries sustained during a BKFC fight. Justin Thornton died after a fight in 2021, six weeks after he was knocked out. Thornton landed on his head, which caused a spinal injury, paralysis and pneumonia that required him to be put on a ventilator. For comparison, in 2025 alone, at least four traditional boxers and MMA fighters died as a result of injuries during competition.

But, to quote one of my favorite bands, AC/DC, “If you want blood, you’ve got it.”

Punches from ungloved fists tend to cause more lacerations than other injuries. More cuts equals more blood — and let’s be honest: Most fight fans like blood.

A total of 98 cuts were suffered by 282 combatants in sanctioned bare knuckle fights from June 2018 to November 2020, according to a study published in The Physician and Sportsmedicine journal. The same study cited five hospital transports, and eight fighters showing concussion symptoms. The study also reported eight hand fractures.

Blood does not always indicate a serious injury that would deem stopping a fight.

“This is far safer than MMA when it comes to head trauma,” said Thompson, who started promoting MMA in Hawaii in the 1990s. “The gloves make it more dangerous for long-term brain damage. I still love MMA, but …”

His voice trailed off briefly, and Thompson then recounted, on background, the tragic status of a friend who was an MMA competitor.

Then he returned to talking on-the-record about bare knuckle fighting.

“It is incredibly violent, but we’re putting hungry fighters in a sport that is less dangerous to them long-term,” he said. “I do feel responsibility. A big question in this is how much pain you can endure. This sport takes a special kind of individual.”

Lesetar-Smith, whose resume includes general counsel and chief legal officer for Bellator MMA, partnered with Thompson to put on the BKFC show. She, her husband and their two children are all martial arts practitioners.

She knows violence draws, but mostly views BKFC through the lens of bushido, the way of the warrior, which emphasizes honor, loyalty, discipline and other positive concepts.

“Bare knuckle is a new sport and an old sport,” she said. “From a regulatory standpoint, new. Anytime you introduce a new format, will the same people be the ones who are successful, or will others rise to the shine? When you have a new format who will rise to the top?”

Maika Samson of Kapolei said it best after his BKFC debut knockout victory Saturday.

“I believe in precision,” he said. “Precision beats power.”

Indeed, precision can mean the difference between knocking out your opponent or breaking your own hand.

Fistfighting without gloves is more relatable to more people who have never trained in martial arts or competed in combat sports than other forms.

Why? Because many of us participated in it ourselves at some point — recent polls indicate that more than 50% of Americans have been in an actual fistfight during their lives. Polls also indicate that most of these occurred while they were minors, since just 16% answered yes to, “Have you ever been in a physical fight as an adult?”

I have similar mixed emotions as my colleague Billy Hull expressed in his column Monday about my attraction to violence. On Saturday, part of me was thoroughly entertained, but another part thoroughly disgusted.

You can call this rationalization if you like, but some of the allure is to marvel at the courage, skill, showmanship and sportsmanship of these men and women.

“Getting in the ring once is one thing,” Lesetar-Smith said. “If you go in again after that first time, you are part of a special breed.”

What does all of this say about us as a society, that real violence is a show that thousands paid money to attend or watch on line?

Just that we are human.

Some humans will fight, often with their bare fists.

Some humans will gamble. Some humans will drive at unsafe speeds.

If you think there’s a way to put a complete halt to any of these activities, you live in a fantasy world. Do a search on “prohibition” and learn how that worked out.

I’ve written many times about why the positives outweigh the negatives when it comes to legalizing gambling and getting a speedway built.

When we regulate these activities they are safer, and influenced less by criminals.

Adults should have the freedom to participate and watch events like Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship bouts as long as the proper guardrails — sanctioning bodies, referees and doctors — are in place and competent.