Bare Knuckle Boxing makes state debut in Tulsa on Friday night

Friday night will mark a ‘first’ in Oklahoma boxing history with the first ever sanctioned ‘bare-knuckle’ boxing match in the state.

Tulsa martial-arts legend Dale ‘Apollo’ Cook is the founder of Xtreme Fight Night or XFN, which is putting on the event, XFN 393, at River Spirit Casino.

He says bare-knuckle boxing is a rapidly growing niche in the combat sports world and is really taking off with boxing and MMA fans.

He says there’s a lot skill involved.

With no gloves, Cook says the fighters have to be much more judicious when picking and choosing their punches.

“The gloves, let’s be honest, in boxing, they’re not worn to protect the guy getting punched, they’re worn to protect the guy punching. And you can break a knuckle, and if you do that in a fight, now you’re a one-armed man, and that’s tough to win in a boxing match,” Cook said.

Tulsa-based kickboxer Haze Wilson will be one of the fighters in the inaugural bare-knuckle bout.

He’ll be going up against Golden Gloves boxer and MMA veteran Tommie Britton.

Wilson says the bare-knuckle format has rekindled his excitement in combat sports.

He says it will definitely be a different experience.

“I’ll be able to see my fingers in the ring, that’s way different,” Wilson chuckled. “Just got me excited kind of all over again, kind of like a kid in a candy store. Yeah, for sure probably a little nuts, but I’m super excited about it to see where it goes after this.”

You can get tickets on the River Spirit website.

The April 19th event starts at 6:30 p.m.

The main event with Wilson and Britton is at 8:00 p.m.

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