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Abstract
This paper presents an application and a further development of Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning’s (Citation2008) Quest for Excitement thesis through the analysis of the recent phenomenon of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) in USA. The research method is based on qualitative data analysis of different digital sources concerning bare-knuckle fighting, ranging from newspaper reports, interviews with promoters and fighters, social network posts, videos, etc. The main finding is that BKFC portrays certain features (e.g. no gloves, blood) that constitute a ‘spectacularization of violence’; it apparently increases the perceived danger of the practice even though it does not increase real harm (e.g. concussions, deaths). BKFC employs other strategies emphasizing control, safety and respectability as a counterweight to obtain an adequate tension balance within the US threshold of sensitivity to violence concerning professional combat sports.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 This catchphrase is precisely the current slogan of UFC, replacing the original “There are no rules!” of the first editions in the 1990s.
2 Combat sports do not only address the monopoly of violence; often they represent a complex intermingling of the twin monopolies of violence and taxation (Elias Citation2012[1939]). Much of the controversy in combat sports has not only been due to excess of violence but to the relationship of combat sports, gambling and match-fixing governed by organized crime. The connections of Mafia and boxing during the first half of the twentieth century in USA or, more recently, connections of Japanese MMA promotion PRIDE and the Yakuza during the 2000s are illuminating case studies in this respect.
3 These analyses relied heavily on Cas Wouter’s (Citation2007; Wouters and Dunning Citation2019) informalisation theory. Even though the present paper does not concern informalisation, BKFC could be analysed taking into account the informalisation/reformalisation spiralling process (Wouters Citation2007) in the quest for excitement, creating an adequate tension balance in US combat sports. See Sánchez García (Citation2019) for a detailed analysis of the development of UFC within this spiralling informalising/reformalising process in USA.
5 US magazine Harper’s Weekly harshly criticized the use of the headlock (still legal in boxing) in the 1860 chronicle of the fight between American John C. Heenan and English champion Tom Sayers, questioning ‘how grand he appears when that opponent’s neck is breaking there, and his equally admirable face is growing black!’ (Harper’s Weekly, May 5, 1860, 274).
6 In 1825, Jack Jones and Patsy Tunney fought a 276 round bout (total duration four and a half hours) in Cheshire, England (Golesworthy Citation1983, 136).
7 Within the British Isles there is a long tradition of various wrestling styles such as Cornish and Cumberland/Westmorland-style, but it was especially Lancashire wrestling which would give birth to the style known as ‘catch-as-catch-can.’ In amateur sport, Lancashire wrestling highly influenced the international (or Olympic) freestyle wrestling discipline (Archer and Svinth Citation2001, 735).
8 For instance, The New Yorker stated: ‘Not the least interesting of all the minor phenomena produced by the current fashion of wrestling is the universal discussion as to the honesty of the matches. And certainly the most interesting phase of this discussion is the unanimous agreement. ‘Who cares if they are fixed or not—the show is good.’’ (Markey Citation1931).
9 According to Dave Meltzer (Citation2017), an American journalist who is seen as a reliable source for UFC statistics: ‘It's been roughly 11 years since the UFC was able to hang with boxing, and eventually surpass boxing (except for rare superfights) as a consistent pay-per-view draw.’ (para. 2).
10 Already in 2017, UK Organization BKB had organized the first bout at the London O2 arena. Organizations such as World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation (WBKFF), presided over by MMA legend Bas Rutten, hosted its first event in 2018. However, after financial problems (fighters not paid) Rutten was sued by Chris Leben in 2019 and Wyoming Police opened an investigation over the scandal (Bissell Citation2019).Other bare-knuckle promotions such as BYB (Back Yard Brawls),conducted by the iconic Street fighter Dada 5000, achieved certain notoriety in the documentary about back yard fights called Dawght Fight (released in 2015) but the format was not so different from MMA and it has not been very successful so far.
11 A greater acceptance of blood also affected previous standards of sports such as boxing, as exemplified on the ban on headguard in amateur boxing since 2013. The International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), made the decision following the results of scientific studies, most prominently Bianco et al. (Citation2013), which determined that the removal of the headguard would decrease concussions. These results were further evidenced by the study of Loosemore et al. (Citation2017), which found that, even though a notable increase in cuts occurred when the headguard was removed, the number of stoppages due to head blows was significantly decreased.
12 Pedersen even made an analogy to the relationship of American football/rugby and bareknuckle/gloved boxing: ‘Football hits hard, because you’re wearing a suit of armor. Rugby you’re not that protected. You have to watch what you do (…) Boxing you can hit a wall with a taped hand and gloves on. In bare knuckles, you obviously can’t, because you could break your hand. (Santoliquito Citation2018, para.11).
13 See a good example featuring moral panics in the Foras article, ‘Hard knocks: the BKFC and the downfall of Western civilization,’ in which the author compares the current situation with the decay of the Roman Empire and the gladiatorial shows: ’This is what happens when civilizations are on the cusp of collapse. The entertainment pushes to the fringes of decency in order to sate the bloodlust and boredom of idol citizens and keep them distracted from the roof caving in over their heads.’ (Foras Citation2019: para 2). ‘The dystopian future we’ve all been dreading… we’re living it. It’s only a matter of time before we start rounding up gangs of youths to kill each other for our entertainment like the Hunger Games.’ (Foras 2019, para. 8).
14 According to Dr. John M. Neidecker, a sports concussion expert and the vice president for the Association of Ringside Physicians, it is hard to tell whether bare-knuckle is more or less dangerous: ‘There is not enough information to say whether or not this is truly a safer combat sport than traditional boxing or MMA for that matter (…) There's arguments that make sense from both sides of the aisle’. (Dawson Citation2019, para 39-43).
15 During an interview, Feldman said: ‘We’re more of an MMA target right now … The 18-45 range is our majority audience, we get some younger and some older, but with the addition of Malignaggi we're getting into boxing fans as well.’ (Dawson Citation2019, 6).
16 On the connection between martial arts/combat sports and different civilising processes, see: Sánchez García (Citation2009) on boxing in the Spanish case; Sánchez García (Citation2018a) on boxing, fencing and duelling in the English, French and German cases; Sánchez García (Citation2019) on MMA in the USA case; Sánchez García (Citation2018b) on martial arts in the Japanese case.
17 Even though Elias’s magnum opus analysed the European case in toto, he also differentiated between the French (Elias Citation2005), English (Elias and Dunning Citation2008) and German cases (Elias Citation2013). These differences are crucial to understanding the acceptance of bare-knuckle fighting in UK when compared to its rejection in continental Europe.