Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship’s fifth event took place over the weekend, with former UFC fighters Artem Lobov and Jason Knight throwing down in a blood-soaked brawl that had the combat sports world buzzing. It was a thrilling affair for five rounds that ended with Lobov earning a hard-fought unanimous decision. 

Not that trying to predict pay-per-view numbers based on social media is necessarily accurate, but if you happened to be on Twitter on Saturday night, you’d have noticed there was a huge buzz around BKFC 5. This web site’s traffic numbers certainly seemed to indicate major interest in the event. So what is it about bare-knuckle fighting that people seem to be so drawn to it? MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes, Mike Bohn and Dave Doyle sound off in this edition of “Triple Take.”

Ben Fowlkes: An audience that grew up on cage fighting is ready for something more extreme

It feels like forever ago that MMA fans and fighters and promoters were constantly playing defense. We had to argue that our sport wasn’t too brutal or barbaric. We had to make a case for its athletic value. We had to be constantly on the lookout for the pearl-clutchers who wanted to shut it down and brand us all bloodthirsty savages.

Those days are mostly gone. These days, the sport once derided as “human cockfighting” is on ESPN. It’s background noise in sports bars. Everybody’s seen it and more or less made up their minds up about it. It’s no big deal.

But see, that has a downside, as well. Because how do you sell the sheer spectacle of a prize fight when it’s all become so normal, just an expected part of the pro sports routine? That’s an especially challenging question for new promoters who don’t have the benefit of an existing brand name in the sport.

That’s the world that BKFC promoter David Feldman is dealing with, and bare-knuckle boxing is his answer. It works, too, because how can we not at least perk up our ears when we hear about it. Training professionals are going to strike each other in the face with bare fists? And with none of this grappling stuff getting in the way? That’s the Woodstock of the stand-and-bang crowd, right there. What more could you want?

Well, maybe some fighters willing to do it. And that’s exactly what BKFC has found in a series of former MMA fighters who were never known for their reluctance to sustain and deliver damage. Over here, in this world, their lack of defensive priorities is now a feature rather than a bug. And the fact that they don’t have too many better offers doesn’t hurt either.

It’s a perfect marriage, for the time being. But may the gods of combat have mercy on us if this gets too normal to be novel. I’m not sure I want to see whatever’s coming next.

Next page – Mike Bohn: The cast of characters makes it work … for now