Bare knuckle boxing is just what it sounds like – the sport of boxing minus the gloves. It is very popular in the UK largely due to the culture there as well as several bare knuckle fighting promotions like BKB which is actually the only licensed Bare Knuckle Boxing company on the Planet, according to their YouTube page.

In this exciting, championship fight from BKB we see something a little different – a multiple time UFC and Bellator veteran, Joe ‘Diesel’ Riggs competing in a bare knuckle match and he does quite well.

Now bare knuckle boxing differs from traditional boxing quite a bit. In bare knuckle you don’t have the big 16 oz gloves to block with which means you have to change your defense a bit. Instead of simply blocking you have to get out of the way of your opponents attacks as punches with no gloves can often slip through the boxing guard which you often see in UFC as well.

Riggs’ style and background in MMA may also be a better fit for bare knuckle fighting compared to traditional boxers, though he does have a background in regular boxing as well. This is because the small gloves used in MMA are more similar to bare knuckle combat.

Though both fighters are wearing wraps in this fight, they are only used to protect the hand and wrist and really do nothing to protect your opponent’s face and the tape may actually increase the risk of cuts, which we see occur in this fight from both parties.

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All in all, this is a pretty exciting contest where the UFC veteran Riggs drops his outmatched opponent multiple times and pretty much dominates the fight outside of a few moments from his opponent, Christian Evans. At the end Riggs is declared the winner by unanimous decision in this entertaining affair.