Sean Wheelock reveals how creating unified rules for bare-knuckle fighting changed BKFC’s future forever

When BKFC first launched in 2018, the promotion only had a couple of options where shows could be promoted simply because state athletic commissions had not sanctioned or really even contemplated the possibility of bare-knuckle fights taking place.

Now seven years later, bare-knuckle fighting is legalized by most major commissions across the United States not to mention numerous countries around the world. In many ways, BKFC’s growth mirrors the UFC after a set of unified rules were created, leading to states legalizing the sport again after most commissions had banned MMA.

Veteran combat sports commentator Sean Wheelock, who calls play-by-play for BKFC, served as one of the founded drafters for the unified rules of bare-knuckle fighting. While those rules being ratified didn’t get much attention, Wheelock says that’s been instrumental in the growth of bare-knuckle fighting across the globe because it’s opened up so many new states and countries where promotions like BKFC can travel.

“Two years ago at the annual convention [for the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports], August of 2023 in Las Vegas, the first-ever unified rules of bare-knuckle were passed,” Wheelock told MMA Fighting. “I was honored to have been placed on that committee to help with those rules. That was the game-changer in this sport.

“Because with unified rules, that’s when you saw California come on board legalizing BKFC. Mohegan Sun [in Connecticut], now Pennsylvania, I don’t believe any of that happens without the unified rules. Smaller athletic commissions, including my home state of Kansas, took a chance on bare-knuckle, kept it safe and legal but other commissions, especially those that book a lot of shows, the high revenue states where they don’t have to take a chance, said we need unified rules. So that happened.”

Since the Bare-Knuckle Fighting Unified Rules were ratified, numerous states have come on board to sanction the sport. That’s what allowed BKFC to book the promotion’s upcoming KnuckleMania V card in Philadelphia.

After the rules were ratified and states started sanctioning the sport, Wheelock says commissions started reaching out to him to help educate referees and judges on the nuances and differences involved with scoring and officiating bare-knuckle fights.

“I love teaching,” Wheelock said. “I love being involved in this and it started when Utah was going to have their first show and their commissioner Scott Bowler, who was a Lion’s Den fighter and now is the executive director of the Utah commission, said ‘Would you just put something together for my people? We’ll do it over Zoom.’ I said sure, no problem, put together a presentation on reffing and judging.

“A few of the California people decided they would listen in. They said ‘Would you teach one for California?’ I said absolutely.”

That has since spiraled into a seminar that Wheelock put together on Jan. 11 and 12 to further educate the masses — including more referees and judges — on the differences involved with bare-knuckle compared to boxing or MMA.

“I was hoping we’d have 40 people. We sold out on the judges with 120 [people] and as you and I are speaking, I have four spots left for referees,” Wheelock said. “Last count we’re at 35 states plus Todd Anderson, former deputy director of the New York State Athletic Commission, great MMA referee, is coming in from Ontario, Canada. It’s very humbling for me.”

Wheelock says even several fighters have signed up to take the course in hopes of perhaps giving them a competitive advantage to better understand what judges and referees are looking for during a fight.

Because bare-knuckle fighting contains elements from both MMA and boxing, Wheelock admits there are a lot of misconceptions and confusion about the differences when it comes to judging a fight or how the referees should handle the action taking place inside the ring.

While bare-knuckle fighting shares a lot of traits with boxing, Wheelock revealed one of the biggest changes made to the rules came with the inclusion of the clinch as a weapon that fighters can employ. In boxing, referees almost immediately break up a clinch if the fighters don’t work free while in MMA, the clinch is a commonly used tactic that can lead to different offensive moves including takedowns.

Obviously, takedowns aren’t allowed in bare-knuckle fighting but Wheelock admits that referees had to basically retool the way they handle that part of the sport when many of them started working at events held by organizations like BKFC.

“There’s a misconception out there that there’s a time [allowed] in the clinch,” Wheelock said. “A three-second rule, a five-second rule. Absolutely not. It’s an active clinch.”

The same goes for scoring comparatively to MMA because bare-knuckle fighting employs a similar strategy as boxing when it comes to knockdowns. That can get dicey at times because Wheelock says there are a lot of different kinds of knockdowns in bare-knuckle fighting but the scoring still had to reflect that for the judges.

“The decision was made with the unified rules, every time a fighter takes a legal punch to a legal target and something other than the soles of his or her shoes touches the canvas, so it could be a fingertip, it could be your hip, it could be your elbow, you count that as a knockdown,” Wheelock said.

“We have a lot of knockdowns, we don’t have that many concussions. So people are getting dropped all the time, they’re just getting dropped from weird punches that aren’t necessarily concussive punches. Typically if you get dropped in MMA or in boxing, that’s a pretty impactful blow. But for anyone who watches BKFC or any bare-knuckle, people fall down all the time and they almost have a look like their face like they slipped on ice. Like what happened? It’s a weird thing in this sport with all of these knockdowns and we really had to weigh that.”

Wheelock explained how one particular fight in BKFC ended up with both fighters scoring a pair of knockdowns in a single round, which he’s never seen happen in boxing. That’s part of the reason why the unified rules for bare-knuckle fighting had to simplify everything down to a knockdown counts the same for either fighter no matter what.

“So as a judge what do you do with that? You can be somebody who’s done 100 world title fights in boxing. I guarantee you’ve never seen two knockdowns a piece [in one round],” Wheelock said. “So we have this set criteria to evaluate those in bare-knuckle rounds that you don’t see infrequently. You see multiple times every card.”

The same goes for cuts and bleeding in bare-knuckle fighting.

There’s a common misconception that bleeding equals damage — and damage is the primary factor for judges scoring in MMA — but Wheelock said that had to be addressed specifically for bare-knuckle fighting where lacerations are almost expected because fighters are punching each other without gloves on.

“You don’t get extra credit because somebody bleeds,” Wheelock explained. “You’re given the same amount of credit for an impactful punch that’s thrown legally to a legal target. If you clock somebody with overhand right or a huge check hook and they don’t bleed, you get more credit for that than if you threw a stupid little flick jab and it just happened to cut them.

“Don’t get seduced by blood as a judge and you certainly don’t want to keep rewarding that person because they got cut by a stupid punch in round 1 or even a big punch in round 1 and they’re still bleeding in round 5. You don’t get extra credit because it’s an especially bloody cut.”

A study conducted by the Association of Ringside Physicians revealed that bare-knuckle fighting was actually safer when it came to injuries like concussions compared to MMA and boxing. On the flipside, there were far more lacerations, which is why Wheelock said that had to be addressed when creating those unified rules.

“About 35 percent of the fighters get cuts,” Wheelock said. “But when you look at concussions, when you look at hospital transports, significantly lower than pro MMA or pro boxing. Orbital fractures around your eye, significantly lower than pro boxing or pro MMA.”

Wheelock’s hope with his seminar and the continued growth of organizations like BKFC that more people learn the nuances attached to bare-knuckle fighting, which will only help the sport in years to come.

“Bare-knuckle, when the history of this is written, is running a parallel track to the UFC and Art Davie and MMA 20 or 30 years earlier,” Wheelock said. “Art Davie had Jim Coleman, the editor of Black Belt magazine, tell him this was dirty fighting and he would never cover MMA.

“Now look where we are in this sport, it’s on Disney owned ESPN. That’s how big it is. Bare-knuckle is the same thing. It goes from ‘I can’t believe anybody would do this’ to ‘wow, when can you come to our state and do a show and sell lots of tickets?’”