{"id":814051,"date":"2026-10-26T03:26:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814051\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T03:26:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T03:26:25","slug":"the-gloves-are-off-the-rise-of-bareknuckle-boxing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/814051\/","title":{"rendered":"The gloves are off: the rise of bareknuckle boxing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Really, deep down, it\u2019s a man\u2019s instinct to want to protect and fight, but you can\u2019t do that any more,\u201d says bareknuckle boxer Mick Terrill. \u201cBack in the day, if someone had an affair with your wife, you chinned them. Now, if your wife\u2019s had an affair, it could be your best pal doing it, but if you chin them, you\u2019re in the wrong. It\u2019s not right. Men know they\u2019re meant to have a fight and they can\u2019t. Then they see this, and it\u2019s the closest thing to a gladiatorial fight. They see the blood and the splatter. It excites people. Men wish they could do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I kept thinking about Dr Jennifer Melfi, Tony Soprano\u2019s shrink in The Sopranos, while writing this story; how she\u2019s faced with two men: Tony, whose physical dominance commands respect from those around him, and her own psychiatrist, clutching a water bottle, whose authority comes from intellect and credentials. Which version of manhood do we prefer? Which do we need?<\/p>\n

In March, I watched my first bareknuckle fight. It was at Newcastle\u2019s main indoor arena, with a crowd of thousands. (I can\u2019t get an exact figure, though I\u2019m told it was about 8,000; a bareknuckle event at Manchester Arena in September drew a crowd of almost 16,000.) Similar bareknuckle events are happening pretty much monthly now in the UK. It claims to be the country\u2019s fastest-growing combat sport.<\/p>\n

Some of it is predictable: the crowd in Newcastle was mostly hard-looking men. Some is less predictable: many women, dressed up for a night out, and children too (one dad had kitted his three young sons out in bareknuckle merch). The crowd sang Sweet Caroline. Two fights stayed with me.<\/p>\n

One involved Danny Wall, a local boxer having his first bareknuckle fight. In the first round, he looked confused, his face covered in blood. He was gesturing to the referee, who stopped the fight. Wall sat on the canvas, his legs apparently limp. He seemed in shock at what had just happened. The beating, I mean. He was helped out of the ring.<\/p>\n

\"Mick<\/p>\n

Mick Terrill, left, fighting Florian de la Motte at the\u00a0Indigo at the O2 in London<\/p>\n

The other was Glasgow\u2019s Jay McFarlane, who fought former world heavyweight bareknuckle champion Terrill, a local fighter from North Shields, a few miles along the Tyne. It was the headline fight. After 53 seconds, McFarlane gestured to the referee, panic on his bloodied face. The fight was stopped. Frustrated fans left, and some scrapped with each other instead.<\/p>\n

Later that night, McFarlane said in a video on Instagram: \u201cI\u2019ve not been completely honest over the last few years in regards to my medical situation. I\u2019ve had nine procedures done on my right eye that I lost vision in and none have been successful. So I can only see out of my left side. I was caught with an inside that scratched my eye, and for 20 minutes there, I just had complete darkness and I couldn\u2019t see.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s why I had to be escorted to the medics. I\u2019m not one for being scared or shitting myself, but for 20 minutes there, my arsehole collapsed. Thankfully, thank God, I\u2019ve now got some vision back and I can see. It\u2019s hard to say this, but I now know that that was my last roll of the dice. I can\u2019t go through that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

I messaged McFarlane, but didn\u2019t hear back. I messaged the event\u2019s organiser, the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC), which is based in Philadelphia and co-owned by former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) champion and would-be politician Conor McGregor (BKFC\u2019s founder, David Feldman, said last month he expects to McGregor will fight bareknuckle after one more UFC fight), but I didn\u2019t hear back.<\/p>\n

Six months after that night in Newcastle, though, I\u2019m sitting with Terrill at his gym in Percy Main, a tough part of North Tyneside. Throughout 2026, I\u2019ve visited his gym, watched his fights, tried to understand bareknuckle\u2019s rise. I ask him about the panic I perceived in Wall and McFarlane. He says they\u2019re both experienced boxers, but bareknuckle\u2019s \u201ca different thing. It\u2019s like being hit with a bat.\u201d<\/p>\n

I never intended to focus on Terrill, I was looking for a way in. I spoke first to his coach, Andy Davison, in December 2025 at the gym, a flat-roofed building with a sign on the front: \u201cPercy Main community sports club.\u201d Inside, there\u2019s a ring, heavy bags. I asked Davison why boxers fight bareknuckle. \u201cI think they just want to test themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Why do spectators like it?<\/p>\n

\u201cBareknuckle is boxing in its purest form,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a game of chess; you can\u2019t afford to make a mistake.\u201d He\u2019s coached several bareknuckle world champions and says Terrill\u2019s gym is the biggest bareknuckle stable in the UK. Fighters travel to train with Davison. He gets flown around the world.<\/p>\n

He was wary, though. Here\u2019s me, a writer from one of the softest parts of Newcastle, doing a piece for The Observer, shining a spotlight (from an angle I choose) on a sport that isn\u2019t really for the likes of me, won\u2019t be understood by the likes of me, potentially drawing the kind of attention that jeopardises its future. The wariness is justified.<\/p>\n

\"Terrill\u2019s<\/p>\n

Terrill\u2019s bloodied hand during the Anarchy In the UK event<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a bare hand, you get more cuts, grazes, bumps, broken hands,\u201d he said, explaining the difference between bareknuckle and gloved boxing, \u201cbut you get more brain trauma with a boxing glove on because you can take so many more shots.\u201d Others in the sport say the same, but I never find sufficient evidence to feel completely assured.<\/p>\n

The argument is there are fewer rounds \u2013 usually five \u2013 in bareknuckle, so fewer impacts because there\u2019s less time (most bareknuckle fights I see finish in the first round), and the damage to hands in bareknuckle fights naturally limits the punching, unlike gloved boxing, which cushions hands and enables fighters to keep swinging hard for more rounds.<\/p>\n

A figure from a 2021 study of 141 bareknuckle bouts suggested that the eight cases of \u201cconcussions with symptoms\u201d, or 2.8%, might be rarer than in gloved boxing, but speaking to the BBC earlier this year, consultant neurosurgeon Peter Hamlyn said he couldn\u2019t say what damage it\u2019s doing, because the data won\u2019t emerge until later in athletes\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

Regardless, to the naked eye, bareknuckle boxing looks much more savage: every fighter is going for a quick knockout \u2013 faces smashed, lacerations leaking blood. Hence squeamishness from people such as me. \u201cDoes it paint it in a good light?\u201d Davison asked me of what I\u2019m writing. \u201cIs it good or bad?\u201d Neither, I told him. I honestly don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

The first time I interview Terrill is in February at his gym. He\u2019s sweeping the ring with a brush, getting ready to spar. He says there\u2019s blood on the canvas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich soft cunt\u2019s bled all over the ring?\u201d shouts Davison to the other fighters. He\u2019s joking. Terrill says they\u2019ll have to wash the canvas tonight. I ask if he\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNah, me wife,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He wraps his hands, puts gloves on. They don\u2019t train bareknuckle. For the next 10 minutes, with Davison looking on, he spars with a massive man with a shaved, tattooed head who\u2019s come from Scotland. Terrill hits him in the face. The Scot has to step out the ring, steam rising from his body, blood dripping from his nose.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, I sit with Terrill, 43, at a desk in his office at the back of the gym. There\u2019s a print of Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s The Last Supper on one wall, posters from his fights in the US on another. Behind him is a whiteboard of building sites he provides security for, one of several businesses he operates. He also runs fight nights in a nearby sports centre.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t make me look stupid,\u201d he says a few times. He does say some things I could make sound stupid \u2013 including politically incorrect stuff \u2013 but I also get the impression he\u2019s happy to be underestimated. He\u2019s not stupid. He is massive.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s 6ft 3in and, though his weight fluctuates, his website says he\u2019s 19st (120kg). It\u2019s hard to imagine going through life having the upper hand on almost everyone you meet, whether through intellect or beauty or being hard. I ask if it feels like a superpower.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the worst thing in the world when people find out you can fight,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause it changes their perception of you. You can see them licking your arse.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask about a photo on the gym wall of him lying flat on his back after being knocked out by American Ben Rothwell in Philadelphia in January 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important when you train the youth\u201d \u2013 his gym\u2019s used by youngsters and adults for pad work, drills and fitness \u2013 \u201cthat they know you\u2019re not always going to get your own way, and if you don\u2019t get your own way, you\u2019ve got to get back at it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a little depression going around these days. I think people think life\u2019s going to be a bed of roses, but it\u2019s not. Every now and then, you get knocked down and you have to pick yourself up.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask if he thinks people feeling depressed about life is partly a lack of resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s society, people have got high expectations,\u201d he says. \u201cI grew up in the 80s and my expectation of life was: it\u2019s going to be hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gym\u2019s motto is in neon on the wall: \u201cNo soft cunts,\u201d Terrill says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what injury you\u2019ve got in this gym, you\u2019ll get no sympathy.\u201d He came up with the motto. \u201cThat\u2019s what your mam and dad used to say when you were kids: stop being soft. When you\u2019re in a fight, you can\u2019t just give up. I\u2019ve seen fights where people just stop but get hit five more times. So you try to ingrain in them: keep going, keep going. That\u2019s all it is. Just don\u2019t be soft. When you get softness, you get anarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnarchy in the UK,\u201d it says on the promo for his next fight. He\u2019s switched to Bare Knuckle Boxing (BKB), another US bareknuckle promoter. He\u2019s top of the card again, this time at the Indigo at the O2 in London in July. The main fights are streamed by Vice TV and TalkSport. BKB has also partnered with TikTok, which streams the preliminary fights. (BKB has said it is trying to develop an audience among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and the tail end of millennials.)<\/p>\n

At the Indigo, there\u2019s a crowd of about 1,300, who sing along to Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. Amir Khan, former world champion boxer, is ringside, commentating. The BKB ring is a small triangle \u2013 the \u201cTrigon\u201d \u2013 that gives fighters nowhere to hide. \u201cThe smallest fighting surface in combat sports,\u201d says MC Kody Mommaerts, who also announced at last December\u2019s fight between British former world heavyweight boxing champion Anthony Joshua and YouTuber Jake Paul \u2013 a sign of the money being put into bareknuckle.<\/p>\n

I go backstage and speak to staff, including medical staff. I see fighters having checks before and after the bouts. (I emailed BKB to ask who regulates bareknuckle boxing in the UK but it declined to reply. I\u2019m told by others that the US-based International Sport Karate and Kickboxing Association acts as regulator in the UK.)<\/p>\n

I say hello to Terrill, who\u2019s about to have a quick nap before his fight. In the arena, I watch Aaron Chalmers (formerly of Geordie Shore) beat Jack Fincham (formerly of Love Island), which sounds silly \u2013 like it\u2019s a novelty fight \u2013 but they\u2019re not silly: they\u2019re serious fighters. Their bout is bloody and brutal. It\u2019s stopped in the first round, blood all over Fincham\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

\"Back<\/p>\n

Another fighter on the card is Will Dermietzel. In September 2025, he fought Jordan Tompkins. Their fight was stopped when Dermietzel\u2019s punch caused Tompkins\u2019s nose to disappear into his head. His face caved in. Dermietzel said in November that he was in touch with Tompkins, who he thought had undergone \u201ca few surgeries\u201d at that point. \u201cThe pain, I can\u2019t even begin to understand how that would feel,\u201d said Dermietzel.<\/p>\n

When I tell Terrill it\u2019s the worst thing I\u2019ve seen in bareknuckle, he says: \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve seen that in Thai boxing as well, someone getting elbowed in the face and their nose disappears.\u201d He says Thai boxing\u2019s the toughest sport he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

Terrill\u2019s fight is the last of the night. His opponent is Florian de la Motte, a fighter from Cologne in Germany, whose Instagram profile says: \u201cThe happiest German in bare knuckle.\u201d He\u2019s big and bald, and he smiles as he waits for Terrill to enter the ring to his usual song, In the Ghetto by Elvis Presley. When I first saw bareknuckle fighters smile like that, I thought it suggested they might win, but it means nothing.<\/p>\n

A few seconds after the fight starts, he\u2019s not smiling. After 90 seconds, his face is bloodied and reshaped. The referee stops the fight. Terrill takes his applause, then leans through the ropes as he leaves the ring and grins at me: \u201cI chinned him,\u201d he says, and I smile. He later tells me he doesn\u2019t really like Germans, but De la Motte \u201cwas the nicest person you\u2019ll ever meet. He actually changed my mind because he was so nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the fight, Terrill and his team celebrate across the Thames from the O2 in the bar at the Radisson Blu hotel, where they\u2019re staying. De La Motte is there too, so Terrill invites him over to join them. \u201cHe was a really nice fella,\u201d Terrill tells me. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve snapped his nose, but that\u2019s the game, innit. He had to get a few stitches. His nose was not straight any more. It was off on a 25 to 30 degree angle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sparring<\/p>\n

Sparring in North Shields<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Terrill walked into the Lloyds Bank in North Shields wearing a ski mask. He had his phone in his top pocket, livestreaming on Facebook. He stood in the queue and paid money in, after which the manager told him he wasn\u2019t allowed to wear a mask in the bank because it\u2019s a security risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s 100% correct,\u201d he says. \u201cI should not be allowed in that bank with my face covered. But if I\u2019m not allowed in the bank with me face covered, nobody else should be.\u201d He says he has no problem with a hijab, but does have a problem with the niqab or burqa if it means two-tier rules. The bank closed his account. Police took no action.<\/p>\n

We pass the bank while walking his two massive dogs. We pass the butcher, which has an illustration of him in the window: \u201cNorth Shields finest.\u201d He\u2019s well known here. People stop to chat. In 2019, Terrill ran to be a Ukip councillor, getting 33.7% of the vote but losing to the Labour candidate. After that, he became a Reform UK member and wanted former chair Zia Yusuf to be party leader. (When I ask in September if he\u2019s still a member, he says he thinks his membership has lapsed now, though he still supports Reform. He adds that he likes Rupert Lowe<\/a>, leader of Restore Britain.)<\/p>\n

He thinks \u201cpolitics is very soft at the minute\u201d. \u201cI love immigration,\u201d he says, but he thinks too many people are arriving and benefits are being exploited. He says he has Muslim friends and has no problem with Muslims or \u201canyone with any ethnicity, colour, religion\u201d, but he\u2019s worried about \u201cIslamists\u201d.<\/p>\n

We walk to his home; a pretty place, immaculate, with herringbone wood floors. He lives with his wife; their three children are grown up. He\u2019s a grandad now too. Some of his title belts are in a display cabinet (he says the others are in a bin bag somewhere). There\u2019s a framed stock certificate for Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts on the wall. In the front room, he has portraits of Wellington and Napoleon, as a reference to the era in which the house was built.<\/p>\n

We drive to his first childhood home in Meadow Well \u2013 or \u201cthe Ridges\u201d, as he and others from the area call it \u2013 that his family left before the riots of 1991. They moved to Shiremoor, a few miles north. He says his dad is \u201ca proper lefty\u201d and used to work as a plater at the local shipyard. His mum looked after the children and home, like his wife does. His uncle was a miner who still complains about Margaret Thatcher.<\/p>\n

Terrill did an apprenticeship and became an electrician. (He did the electrics at his gym, which he opened last year at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.) He used to work as an electrician for a local council and as a doorman at night. He started training in Thai boxing when he was about 23 after getting \u201cfilled in three times in one night\u201d in Whitley Bay. He was good at fighting, won kickboxing competitions.<\/p>\n

In 2015, he had his first bareknuckle fight in a function room in Newcastle, the year bareknuckle took off, encouraged by the success of mixed martial arts. He made \u00a35,000 from that fight. (In April 2024, disclosed purses for an event in Los Angeles said Terrill earned $100,000 for that fight, which I was told sounded right. When I ask Terrill how much he gets, he would only say on WhatsApp: \u201cIt\u2019s good mate, very good.\u201d)<\/p>\n

After more fights in the UK, he was invited in 2021 to fight in the US, where he became heavyweight world champion, fighting in Florida, Utah and California, before losing to the enormous Rothwell, who poked Terrill in the eye during their fight at KnuckleMania V in Philadelphia last year. The fight lasted 36 seconds. \u201cI got chinned,\u201d says Terrill.<\/p>\n

\"Terrill<\/p>\n

On Wednesday 26 August, Terrill got another shot at the title. Middlesbrough\u2019s Mark O\u2019Neil was supposed to fight the BKB world heavyweight champion, Cuba-born Gustavo Trujillo, in Miami that Saturday. But O\u2019Neil had a visa issue; he wasn\u2019t going to make it. Terrill, who was already flying to the fight for promo work, offered to step in. \u201cI was texting the Americans: \u2018I\u2019ll fight, I\u2019ll fight,\u2019\u201d he says, despite no fight camp and no preparation.<\/p>\n

Terrill didn\u2019t hear back from the Americans before setting off from Newcastle, so packed his kit just in case. While changing flights at Heathrow, he heard back. It was on. He flew to Miami, accompanied by his wife, who then joined him as he spent all Thursday driving around clinics and offices hurriedly getting blood tests, an eye exam, an electrocardiogram, a brain scan. \u201cEverywhere we went, she was trying to get a little bit of a suntan,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

BKB put them up in a suite at the Hyatt Regency on the riverfront in Miami and flew over his coach, Davison, who stayed in a suite too. That Saturday night, Terrill fought in what was billed by BKB as \u201cthe biggest fight in bareknuckle history\u201d, but quickly got a bad cut to his eye, and it ended in the second round, Terrill on his haunches, after he was hit in his solar plexus. \u201cI couldn\u2019t catch me breath,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought I was gonna be sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the fight, he had 22 stitches around his eye. Halfway through, a medic said she needed to make up more anaesthetic before finishing the stitches, but Terrill wanted to go and get showered. He said to do it without anaesthetic, but it was more painful than expected. \u201cMe mate\u2019s holding me feet and I\u2019m going: \u2018It\u2019s in me eyeball, it\u2019s in me eyeball.\u2019 But you\u2019ve seen the sign in the gym: \u2018No soft cunts.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what injury you\u2019ve got, you\u2019ll get no sympathy. Mam and dad used to say when you were kids: stop being softIt doesn\u2019t matter what injury you\u2019ve got, you\u2019ll get no sympathy. Mam and dad used to say when you were kids: stop being soft<\/p>\n

He\u2019s telling me this in the office at his gym, two weeks after the fight. He still has bruising around his eye. The cut is still healing. He shows me a scar above his other eye from a previous fight. The new injury means he\u2019s been removed from the card for a bareknuckle night at the arena in Newcastle on 10 October, though, as we speak he\u2019s trying \u2013 unsuccessfully \u2013 to persuade the commissioner to let him fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve literally got a year left,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to fight as many people as I can.\u201d When he arrived in Miami, before the fight with Trujillo, he was promised a rematch. He expects another fight with him to happen in December or January, somewhere in the US. With a full camp, Davison thinks Terrill will win. \u201cI think, if we\u2019re both fit,\u201d says Terrill, \u201cit\u2019ll be good craic.\u201d<\/p>\n

We talk about the London fight. I say it\u2019s strange that the former Millennium Dome now hosts bareknuckle boxing. Nobody would have predicted that in 1999. \u201cThat\u2019s the problem people have with bareknuckle,\u201d he says, making a different point. \u201cThey think it\u2019s going to be in a car park or someone\u2019s pub, but it\u2019s mainstream now. It\u2019s in arenas. Eventually, it\u2019ll just be normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like if you listen to serial killers when they\u2019re interviewed after they\u2019ve been caught,\u201d he says. \u201cThey say they were nervous for the first one, but by the second, third and fourth, it becomes normal. It\u2019s the same with bareknuckle. At first, it\u2019s a shock, like it shouldn\u2019t be happening, but people see it more and more, then it\u2019s normal. I think that\u2019s basically how violence works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photographs by Gary Calton for The Observer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Really, deep down, it\u2019s a man\u2019s instinct to want to protect and fight, but you can\u2019t do that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,5343,242,217,101,267187,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-814051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-culture","tag-features","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-tyneside","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}