This past Saturday, former WBO junior lightweight champion Jamel Herring made his Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) debut at BKFC 86 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., winning a unanimous 50-45 decision over Matt Guymon.
At 40, Herring’s journey back to the ring was more than just a return to competition; it was a testament to resilience, drawing from his years of military service and overcoming long layoffs in his boxing career.That resilience was needed in a heavy contact combat sport.
“Definitely a different experience, but again, I knew what I was getting into,” Herring said of his first BKFC contest, “I know it’s a fast pace and you always have to stay on your guard because again the minute you slow down, you get hit.”
Herring is now targeting Justin Ibarrola and his BKFC world bantamweight title. As a newcomer to BKFC, though, he’ll have to work his way up to a championship match. Yet, the native of Rockville Center, N.Y., in Hempstead, Long Island, will not be deterred. The former WBO junior lightweight title holder from 2019 to 2021 has gone up against some of boxing’s most recognizable names, such as Shakur Stevenson and Lamont Roach, in his 29 career boxing matches. Seven months after losing to Stevenson in October 2021 by a tenth round TKO, Herring retired from boxing.
In the BKFC main event, Dustin Pague dethroned welterweight world champion Julian Lane, dropping him once and surviving a late onslaught from the defending champ in a fight scheduled for five rounds that went to an overtime sixth round. The overtime round is rare in BKFC and is only used in world championship fights where a winner is not definitely decided after five rounds.
On January 31, Newark, N.J., native Stevenson (24-0, 11 KOs) will vacate his WBC lightweight title and move up from 135 to 140 pounds to challenge Brooklyn’s Teofimo Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs) for the latter’s WBO and the Ring junior welterweight titles. Lopez, 28, holds the most impressive victory of the pair, having defeated Vasiliy Lomachenko in October 2020.
On the same night, WBO junior middleweight champion Xander Zayas (22-0, 13 KOs) returns to his native Puerto Rico to defend his strap against Abass Baraou.
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