After making history being crowned British bare knuckle champion with an undefeated five fights, Hartlepool’s Bradley Taylor has his sights set on America.
Bradley, 26, has taken the bare-knuckle boxing world by storm and following his latest win – when he was crowned BKFC Bantamweight Champion – his achievements were recognised by fight king, Conor McGregor, who took to Instagram dubbing Bradley: “Another level fighter.”
For the former Dyke House schoolboy, the recognition from McGregor bowled him over. He said: “It was surreal because he is like an idol to me. Just seeing him shout me out was unbelievable.”
Bradley secured his title at the Walker Activity Dome in Newcastle when he defeated Lewis Garside, scoring the fight’s only knockdown in the opening round and never looking back.
It was the first time his grandparents and godmother had been at one of his fights, but he added: “My mam has been to every single one and she cries at every one. She says she needs to be there in case something happens to me.”
Bradley with some of his support team, l-r, Adam Hepple, Terry Tyers and Ali Shah(Image: UGC)
Bradley Taylor has been crowned Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) UK Bantamweight Champion(Image: UGC)
The dad-of-one, who works for a haulage company, said he he had practiced gloved boxing, on and off since he was about 12; first at Hartlepool’s Catholic Boxing Club and then at Twins Academy in Trimdon, where he now trains under his coach, Jordan Williams. But, he has never fought competitively.
In 2023 he saw an advert for Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) and applied. He said: “They told me to come and were mad impressed straight away and my first fight was in the October.” Since then it has been win after win for Bradley, who is now ranked fourth in the world in his category.
He said: “There’s some talk that my next fight might be for the world championships, so fingers crossed that will come off. Ideally I would like to get out to America, I have fought in front of British crowds and it would be great to fight in front of American crowds.”
His latest win was two weeks ago and Bradley, who is dad to five-year-old Hughie, says most of his swelling from the bout has gone down. He said: “My hands were in pretty bad shape. It is brutal and can be a dangerous sport.”
But, he said he just loves boxing and he is hugely dedicated, putting hours and hours of work into training to make sure he is ready for his fights.
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