The newest breakthrough combat sport could end up being bare-knuckle boxing, which has a documented history that runs from 1681 to 1889. The sport is making a resurgence under Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, and former UFC women’s strawweight ‘Rowdy’ Bec Rawlings has emerged as something of a star.

She won in exciting fashion at BKFC 1 on June 2, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Rawlings boxes prizefighter Britain Hart at BKFC 2 on August 25 at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Miss. Rawlings meets professional boxer Britain Hart on the card. The sports is controversial; Rawlings isn’t afraid of controversy.

BKFC is doing it right, they’re doing it very professionally, said Rawlings to Mike Bohn for MMAjunkie. They’re bringing in all the right people and al the right fighters. As long as it keeps going that way, I think the sport is going to take off. … A lot of boxing fans are coming over to bare knuckle because they love the stand-up aspect of boxing and this is just a new cool, fun twist. It’s taking it back old-school.

I think the U.S. and even Australia one day will open up to doing bare knuckle as well, because it’s such a great event. It’s a great fighting sport, and it wasn’t any crazier than MMA and boxing, as you saw from the last event.

It took a lot of time and effort to really get MMA respected and looked at like a proper sport, and I think it’s going to take that with bare knuckle. But from the last event and how smoothly that ran, how professional it was, the fights were great. We all looked like seasoned fighters out there, which we were, and I think that’s what we definitely need to keep doing and it will progress from there.”