Chris Lytle remembers the first time he heard of bareknuckle fighting.
“I thought it was crazy,” Lytle recently told MMA Junkie. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with those guys? Who would do bareknuckle fighting?”
Lytle first saw bareknuckle boxing in 2017 when he came across a clip of friend and fellow UFC alumnus Joe Riggs chucking knuckles with opponent Christian Evans in Coventry, England, under the BKB banner.
At the time, bareknuckle boxing was not sanctioned by any state commissioning body in the United States.
“I like Joe (Riggs) and was like, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’ I watched his fight and halfway through it, I said, ‘I need to do a fight.’ My mind totally changed,” Lytle said. “As soon as I watched it, I was like, ‘This is not what I thought. This is not what it sounds like.'”
Lytle made an international phone call. Twelve months later, he fought for BKB. When bareknuckle was finally sanctioned in a handful of states in the U.S., Lytle was one of the first MMA notables to raise his hand.
“Unfortunately, I’ve realized I have the heart and the mind of a fighter,” Lytle said. “I always have. That’s not going to go away. But eventually, you have to stop doing that. The human brain should only do so much. There is a finite number of punches you can take before there’s a problem. … I’d fight until I’m 80, but you can’t do that. I love the bareknuckle for one reason that people don’t give it enough credit for. It’s so much easier on your body to train for a bareknuckle fight.”
As he got more involved, a part of Lytle’s conscience from years prior was tapped into. A veteran of 20 fights under the UFC banner, Lytle was scratching and clawing his way in the Wild West of MMA in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
The rejection of a foreign violence form is similar to that of what the UFC underwent, Lytle explained. BKFC is an acquired taste, but Lytle thinks it only takes one sitting to realize you want to indulge more.
“I feel like I went back in a time machine in some ways,” Lytle said. “I was around. I fought for the UFC for the first time in 2000. That was before Dana White and Zuffa was involved, and I started fighting for them regularly in 2003. I saw the growth. I saw it come from nothing, an underground thing people thought you were a lunatic for doing, to the mainstream. It’s amazing. I was there for that transition. Now, I see so many parallels and so many similar trajectories that we’re going through with BKFC. I feel like I went back in time. Like, who gets to be at the creation of a sport twice in their life? That’s such a rarity that this happens. I feel like I’m a unique position to help guide this and help avoid some pitfalls. I feel like it took the UFC a lot longer to make it. For us, it’s going to be much faster.”
Lytle found a way to help, and the sport helped him back. Dozens of events into his BKFC lead color commentator gig, Lytle has the bareknuckle bug running through his veins. He travels across the country with broadcast partner Sean Wheelock as the two try to simultaneously describe what they see, while also figuring out how an embryonic combat sport develops.
“Sean is like that basketball player who just dribbles around,” Lytle said. “He has three guys on him, dribbles through his legs, throws an alley-oop up, and all I have to do is jump up and dunk it. He pitches me softballs, and all I have to do is hit them. It’s so good working with him. He makes it so easy. When we were first commentating, he was like, ‘All right, Chris. You’ve been a cornerman for many years. Just pretend you’re the cornerman. But instead of waiting between rounds, just tell what you’re seeing.’ So now I just go out there and pretend I’m the cornerman for both guys.”
As for the future, Lytle aims to help BKFC grow in whatever way he can. He thinks a major streaming deal will do the promotion’s wonders. BKFC president David Feldman has teased a deal is in the works, though no further details have been revealed.
Product exposure is the name of the game right now, Lytle said. He continues to use his own experience falling in love with bareknuckle as the blueprint.
“The UFC really took off when it got on SPIKE TV,” Lytle said. “People really saw a lot of aspects of it. I don’t care if people see the background. I don’t care if people see the fighters for who they are. Just seeing these fights, if people see these fights, they’re going to go mad. This is entertaining. This is fun. I’d like to talk to people and say, ‘Are you a UFC fan? Are you an MMA fan?’ … Most people are UFC fans. A lot of those people don’t even like it when it goes to the ground. You’re a BKFC fan, and you don’t know it. Once you watch what we do, you’ll think it’s way more entertaining, and you’ll like it.
“We just have to get people to see it. Once they see it a few times, they’re going to like it, and they’re going to be hooked, and they’re going to watch it. I just feel like we’re on a different path. All we have to do is get people to see us. … I don’t see many people ever who come and say, ‘Eh, that was all right.’ People love us once they watch us. We’ve just got to get people to see us for the first time.”
