Knockout puncher Parker Porter, a former UFC fighter ripping through Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship’s heavyweight division, says the sport of bare knuckle is closer to boxing than to mixed martial arts.
Bare-knuckle has enjoyed a new wave of popularity following its sanctioning in Wyoming in 2018, ahead of subsequent legalizations in other states, too. BKFC is typically regarded as the dominant fight firm in the space, and is helped no doubt from an exciting heavyweight division among depth in other weight classes, too.
A 23-fight veteran in MMA, Porter is part of a new wave in bare-knuckle and returns to toe the line March 28 at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, atop the BKFC Fight Night card airing on DAZN. And though he brings an MMA striker’s skillset to the ring, he believes it remains a boxing-adjacent combat sport.
“I think it’s more closely aligned with the boxing background,” he told Boxing Social. “But I think having some MMA gives an advantage because it’s a different game when you involve the clench-fighting.”
Boxing Social heard this first through BKFC champion Austin Trout, a former world-level fighter in gloved boxing. Trout told us he had to drill clinch-fighting techniques, and develop more solid upper-body strength, to level up in this area, while retaining the techniques that made him a star in boxing. His record in BKFC is 5-0 (2 KOs) and he fights again soon, hoping to add two-weight champion status to his late-career success in BKFC.
For Porter, it’s similar. “Obviously in traditional boxing, I can’t tie and grab the back of your head,” he said. “Or wrap an arm, or whatever it may be that you’re doing to start throwing shots. That’s highly taboo in traditional boxing. So, you know, that little piece of the MMA background is why, I think, you’re seeing some of these guys make the jump over to bare knuckle boxing, versus the other way with the pure boxers.”
Parker fought eight times in the UFC, and has a record of 14 (6 KOs and 3 Subs) against 9 defeats in pro MMA. He has, though, stormed to a flawless record of 3-0 (3 KOs) in bare knuckle, hoping to advance that to 4-0, and embark on a run that makes a title shot a foregone conclusion.
Should he beat Haze Wilson in BKFC this weekend, a fight against another former UFC star, Ben Rothwell, who recently relinquished the BKFC heavyweight title to Andrei Arlovski, could loom on the horizon. “He’s definitely in my crosshairs,” Porter said of that prospective fight.
Beat Wilson, and someone like Rothwell, then he’d have made the next-best claim after Leonardo Perdomo for the title, as the 11-0 (11 KOs) Cuban obliterated his most recent opponent and then stared down Arlovski, indicating that title fight might be next.
“I’m going on that same tear,” Porter said of Perdomo’s run. “I’m not going to be stopped until I get to the belt, and even then you’re not going to stop me,” he finished.
