“Have you ever seen a wet cat get water dumped on it?”<\/p>\n
PublishedDecember 8, 2025 5:00 PM EST\u2022UpdatedDecember 8, 2025 4:38 PM EST<\/p>\n
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Have you ever wondered what it felt like to get punched square in the face?<\/p>\n
That’s not a leading question or anything, but I was genuinely curious what the answer would be.<\/p>\n
So, I decided I needed to ask an expert.<\/p>\n
My search led me to the Bare Knuckle Boxing league, a fighting league that is exactly how it sounds: dudes pummeling the crap out of each other without any protective gear whatsoever.<\/p>\n
These guys are the baddest of the bad, so I wanted to ask one of their best fighters what those bare knuckles felt like when they connected with a face.<\/p>\n
Meet Jerome “The Hatchet” Hatch, a three-time Knockout of the Night and Fight of the Night winner.<\/p>\n
I opened our conversation with a very simple, two-part question: what does it feel like to be punched in the face and to punch someone in the face?<\/p>\n
His answers were about as you’d expect from someone with nearly 200 of these things under his belt.<\/p>\n
After getting that burning question out of the way, I decided to dig a little deeper into what makes “The Hatchet” tick.<\/p>\n
On what led him to be a bare-knuckle boxer.<\/p>\n
“You know, I just enjoy fighting. I like the test.”<\/p>\n
“I kind of got in trouble as a kid and was turned that way by a judge\u2026 actually made a pretty good career out of something that was a hobby of mine.”<\/p>\n
How do you know if this is the sport for you?<\/p>\n
“I guess the long and short of it is if you get your ass kicked more often than not, then you’re not very good.”<\/p>\n
How do you tell people what you do for a living?<\/p>\n
“I don’t say nothing. It’s usually the people around me\u2026 they usually start running their mouth and I’m like \u2018hey, dude, you ain\u2019t big enough to ride this ride.'”<\/p>\n
“I’m usually saving you the worst ass-whooping of your life, especially in front of your wife.”<\/p>\n
So you’re never the one to egg it on?<\/p>\n
“No, I’m usually the calmest one in the room. My friends are like \u2018you realize you\u2019re the baddest dude in here but the calmest dude in the room?'”<\/p>\n
“I’m just chill, I don’t care.”<\/p>\n
How does that feel to walk into a bar knowing you’re the baddest dude in there?<\/p>\n
“You know, you don’t even really think about it most of the time.”<\/p>\n
“The only time it ever hit me, I was downtown for Mardi Gras\u2026 I was just enjoying drinks with my girlfriend without a worry in the world (knowing no one could touch me). It taught me there’s peace through strength.”<\/p>\n
What is one thing people don’t know about bare knuckle boxing as a sport?<\/p>\n
“It’s a mental game.”<\/p>\n
“If you get hit and that blood starts dripping\u2026 you just deflate\u2026 People get cut and they panic because society says (to do so)\u2026 If you can stay calm it’s a telltale sign, you can learn a lot about (a fighter) in those circumstances.”<\/p>\n
Follow me on X @Austin_Perry92 to see more clips from the interview coming soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Have you ever seen a wet cat get water dumped on it?” PublishedDecember 8, 2025 5:00 PM EST\u2022UpdatedDecember…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-335899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}