Bare-knuckle boxing is the original form of boxing and is closely related to ancient combat sports. It is genius in its simplicity and the aforementioned name more or less sums up exactly what bare-knuckle boxing is: it involves two individuals fighting without boxing gloves under an agreed upon ruleset.

Professional bouts are now held, created and managed by the World Bare-Knuckle Boxing Association which itself is not recognized as a sports organization anywhere outside of the United States.

Although tournaments and unregulated bouts are illegal in most countries there are many groups of people who still engage in highly organized and sophisticated contests although there are no official sanctioning or regulating bodies.

The majority of these contests seem to be held in the British Isles and are very popular amongst the gypsies or travelers. The tradition of bare-knuckle boxing amongst the Irish travelers in particular dates back centuries and has deep familial roots with rivalries between families going back just as far.

In the video below, a gentleman by the name of Francie Gavin appears to be fighting his cousin, well, that is according to the title of the video. Apparently, there is no love lost between these two familial foes as they have no problem engaging in a bout of the good ole fashion fisticuffs.

As is probably par for the course with most traveling gypsies, I’m assuming that this is how most familial disputes are handled. What is interesting in this video is that there is some clear hesitation followed by a ferocious fury of action which ends in extremely brutal fashion.

So check out the video below to see this bare-knuckle contest end with shocking results.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…