A decade on from holding a piece of the heavyweight crown, Lucas Browne is on the cusp of historic accomplishment.
Browne cruised to a second-round victory over Corey Harrison in his BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing debut. Mr. Browne’s first punch was a powerful jab that sprawled Harrison into the ropes. A right hand opened a big hairline gash. The fight was thus stopped at the start of the second round on the advice of the ringside physician as Harrison was bleeding profusely.
“Big Daddy” has rediscovered his paternal role with his bare-knuckle win and is eyeing a potential title run in his new sport.
His last three boxing contests were all losses. Browne looked awful in his loss to Mark Petrovsky (7-0) in Dubai 2023. This was Browne’s last international fight, though he fought once more in his native Australia in 2024 in a first-round knockout loss before retiring with a record of 31 wins and 6 losses.
In the bareknuckle trigon, Browne, at 46, looks rejuvenated and he could be set up for a shot at the BKB Heavyweight title which is held by Gustavo Trujillo, aka “The Cuban Assassin,” who fights primarily out of Florida.
If Browne were to win the bareknuckle heavyweight championship, having already held a version of the heavyweight title, he would be the first fighter to do such in over a century. Not since then bareknuckle champion John L. Sullivan announced that he would only fight challengers in gloved contests has a heavyweight boxer been able to brag of this accomplishment. Sullivan reigned from February 7, 1882, to September 7, 1892 in gloved contests and is credited as the sport’s first true global star.
To get a fight with Mr Trujillo, the Australian may have to go through Kamil Sokolowski, who holds the No. 1 contender spot in ungloved boxing and has a previous defeat to “Big Daddy” in 2019. Browne has said he is open to facing Sokolowski in a bare-knuckle contest.
Browne won the World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight title (at least the regular version) in 2016 in an upset over Ruslan Chagaev in Chechnya. The Uzbekistani fighter never again followed his title loss, ending his career 34-3-1.
Browne’s other career wins include a victory over James Toney (77-10) for the lightly regarded WBF heavyweight title and a big upset in 2022 when he stopped Australian rival Junior Fa (20-3) in what was supposed to be a bounce-back fight for Fa.
Former world champion James DeGale (25-3-1) is reportedly close to making his bareknuckle debut. Both commonwealth fighters are following in the footsteps of former two-division world champion Paulie Malignaggi (36-8), who has appeared in multiple bareknuckle contests in recent years.
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