Photo by Fite
- Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship may be the wildest, most ferocious, and bloodiest show in town.
- If ever you need reminding of that, just watch BK FC 19 – its latest show.
- In highlight clips below you can see a weigh-in melee, a five-second KO, and a post-fight brawl.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
If ever you needed reminding that the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship may be the wildest, most ferocious, and the bloodiest show in town, then the company's latest event – BK FC 16 – was all the proof you could want.
This is the combat sports promotion that adheres to an aggressive ruleset where combatants compete bare knuckle, and throw fists at each other until one of them is on the floor, bloodied, and beaten.
The fledgling company, which was only founded in 2018, is gaining hype with every event.
In 2019, the promotion pitted ex-UFC fighters Jason Knight and Artem Lobov against each other in a fight so gruesome it caked the canvas in their blood.
Later, the former boxing world champion Paulie Malignaggi was drafted into the promotion, two American women Taylor Starling and Charisa Sigala received standing ovations for beating each other to a pulp, and NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal has reportedly considered making an investment into the business.
The latest event, though, may have been its most brutal yet.
It all began at a weigh-in ceremony Friday when competing athletes had to make their pre-determined weights for Saturday's action.
All was going well until Julian Lane and Jake Bostwick took to the stage.
Lane ripped his shirt after making weight, slapped himself in the face while screaming "Let's go," and waited for his opponent Bostwick to make weight, too.
Bostwick initially refused to look at Lane, but when a fired-up Lane started rubbing the butt of his head into his face, all hell broke loose as Bostwick threw an open-palm strike in retaliation.
Watch it here:
During the actual event, which took place at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Eduardo Conception opened the action with a stunning five-second knockout win over Gaberial Brown in the very first match.
Conception threw with bad intentions as soon as the fight began, with Brown seemingly intent on using his face as a shield.
Four punches later, he planted the canvas, and Conception had won in just seconds.
Watch it here:
-FITE (@FiteTV) June 27, 2021
Lane met Bostwick in the ninth of 14 fights at BK FC 16, and got the last laugh, returning a decision win in their 170-pound match.
Later, MMA star Pearl Gonzalez got her bare knuckle career off to a winning start with a decision win of her own.
And Luis Palomino upset Tyler Goodjohn, a fighter with an OnlyFans side hustle, with a victory via points.
Then, things got really interesting.
In the penultimate fight on the night, Hector Lombard scored a controversial fourth-round finish over Joe Riggs to win the BK FC cruiserweight title.
Bare knuckle rival Lorenzo Hunt then casually walked into the ring as if to challenge the new champion.
Lombard did not take too kindly to this and landed one of the finest two-punch combinations of his entire career.
Check out the chaos right here:
-FITE (@FiteTV) June 27, 2021
Joey Beltran then beat Sam Shewmaker by decision in what was, by the evening's standards at least, a relatively uneventful main event.
The Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship is getting bigger. Already an accepted part of the combat sports landscape, an Insider source says downloads of the company's Bare Knuckle TV app are growing rapidly.
The company returns for its next show July 23 with BK FC 19 when Paige van Zant, possibly BK FC's biggest-name star, fights Rachael Ostovich in the main event.