There will be blood: Chesapeake fighter prepping for the 1st sanctioned bare-knuckle fight in the U.S. in 130 years

CHESAPEAKE Just minutes into a two-hour workout, Reggie Barnett Jr. hit the wall. It was brick and impervious to the punches of a super featherweight boxer like Barnett – or any boxer, for that matter. Barnett hit it anyway, his scabbed knuckles making a pinging sound as they rapped against masonry and mortar in the industrial park near Greenbrier that houses the 757 Boxing Gym. It sounded painful. It looked painful. But it’s necessary training for what Barnett is undertaking. Saturday in Cheyenne, Wyo., Barnett will fight on the first state-sanctioned bare-knuckle boxing card in the U.S. since the days of John L. Sullivan – a span of 130 years. It’s a case, as his manager says, of the oldest sport becoming the newest sport. As Barnett himself says, there will be blood. But to those who see bare-knuckle fighting as the new low in a combat sports industry trending toward barbarism, advocates hit back with counter-arguments. Gloves weren’t adopted in the 1890s to protect fighters’ heads and bodies. Rather, they were intended to protect the hands, allowing a boxer to land more punches and to throw harder. Though they give an illusion of safety, gloves allow for an accumulation of blows that can be severely damaging and have proven deadly at times. In bare-knuckle fighting, which has to this point been an underground sport contested in warehouses and garages, no one gets banged on round after round, proponents say. Fights tend to end quickly, when someone lands a solid shot. Injuries are mostly superficial: busted lips, broken noses. In becoming the first U.S. state to sanction the sport, officials in Wyoming said it is safer than mixed martial arts, in which fighters can be hit by knees, shins and elbows. They believe blows in bare-knuckle fighting will produce less blunt-force trauma and fewer concussions and other injuries. Barnett, who has been boxing since age 6, is convinced bare-knuckle is safer. Still, even among boxers, a warrior breed, it’s not for everyone. Barnett feels born to do it. “Not everybody is built for it,” he said. “But me? I don’t mind. Bloody lip? Busted nose? My nose is crooked. It’s been broken many a time. You just fight through it. I feed off that. “If you hit me as hard as you can and you didn’t knock me down or knock me out? It’s a wrap.” Like all boxers, Barnett, 31, fights for reasons personal and primal. And if you don’t get it, well, you don’t get it. “To be completely honest, the fighter instinct in me always, you know, itches deep down inside to hit somebody in the mouth,” he said. “I know I can’t do that. “When they said they were going to bring back bare-knuckle fighting, I was like, ‘That’s my shot.’ I started off fighting bare knuckles. It just wasn’t legal then.” The fighter instinct runs deep in Barnett. His father, Reggie Barnett Sr., grew up in a mean part of Dallas and had to fight to survive. Like his son, who is about 5-foot-5 and a lean and ripped 135 pounds, the elder Barnett was small, a target for unsuspecting bullies. “They had no idea I could fight until it was too late,” he said. Barnett Sr. began boxing at the Dallas Boys Club and continued after joining the Navy, making the all-Navy team in 1980. He considered turning pro, but instead made a career in the service before retiring in 1995. He settled in Hampton Roads to raise his family. He taught his children – two sons and a daughter – how to defend themselves, with no intention of them taking up boxing. Reggie Jr. had a taste for it, however. He put on the gloves at 4 and had his first fight at 6. He lost his first seven fights, though, and switched to baseball. At 8, he was ready to give boxing another try. Over the next decade, he had 92 amateur fights and won state Silver Gloves, Golden Gloves and Junior Olympics titles. Barnett also wrestled at Salem High, where he got into his share of neighborhood scraps. When he turned 18, he tried mixed martial arts. His father was against it, but Barnett no longer needed his permission. He signed a release and drove to Roanoke to fight on an amateur card. On his own for the first time, he lost his nerve before the fight. “I called my dad crying. He said, ‘Well, you drove up there, you might as well get in the cage.’ ” Barnett lost that night, then dropped his next two MMA bouts before he made a deal with a friend who was also an MMA fighter: I’ll teach you to box if you teach me to grapple, he said. Barnett won 15 of his next 17 amateur MMA fights. Around the same time, however, he started drinking, often heavily. Barnett recalls a particularly rough night after he was supposed to fight for an MMA title. The bout fell through and Barnett got drunk. The next morning, the promoter informed him the fight was back on. Barnett first said no, but then relented. “I was still feeling it from the night before, but I won the fight,” he said. It took years, however, for Barnett to get sober. “I struggled,” he said. “I wanted to, but I didn’t know how to do it. Finally, with therapy and support from my family, I took a hiatus from life, and got myself together.” During Barnett’s drinking years, his father opened a gym. Barnett was in and out, hanging with friends more than training. Finally, Barnett Sr. pulled his son aside, told him he’d never known his own father. But if he had – and his father had a gym, he would have been there every day. Barnett eventually came around, and the gym became a refuge. Sober since 2013, he launched his pro boxing career two years later, at 29. He’s 6-1, with his lone loss coming to 1996 Olympic team alternate Gerald Tucker – in a fight he took on three days’ notice. Barnett cut 14 pounds to make weight and went into the bout rubbery-legged. Still, he made a fight of it, rocking Tucker with a right hook. Tucker retired after the bout. Barnett fought on, in the ring and in the cage. When he heard about bare-knuckle fighting, he felt as if he’d found his calling. Barnett went to Philadelphia for a tryout, and then went through a series of interviews. The process took nearly two years, while promoter David Feldman worked on getting the event sanctioned. Twenty-eight states turned him down. Meanwhile, Barnett trained daily, after toiling at his 9-to-5 job as a senior lead termite technician with Hampton Roads Termite and Pest Control. The job is a workout in itself. On a recent day, Barnett spent six of his eight hours under a house, pouring four tons of sand, spraying for fungus, laying a moisture barrier. “It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it,” he said. “I don’t mind. To me, it’s just another training session for the day.” His evening training takes place at 757 Boxing Gym, which, in a region in which fight gyms come and go, has survived for 11 years. Barnett Sr., a technical writer for the Coast Guard, moved his business to the current location in 2014. It’s located in a low-slung building off Greenbrier Parkway that houses light industrial businesses, a clothing designer and a performance shop. Garage doors open to a parking lot, where on a recent evening, Barnett threw punches into mitts held by his father. He turned his fists in a corkscrew motion. It’s part of the plan and one of the ways bare-knuckle fighting differs from traditional boxing. The Mike Tyson of the sport is heavyweight Bobby Gunn, who takes a 73-0 record into Saturday’s card. The former pro boxer fought the likes of Roy Jones Jr. and James Toney and compiled a 23-7-1 record with gloves. Gunn is a legend in bare-knuckle and was featured in a “60 Minutes” report that brought cameras into an underground fight in a warehouse that was later revealed to be in Wilmington, Del. Fighters toed a line taped on the floor before squaring off. They fought in street clothes, the better to blend in with the crowd in case the fight was raided. Some have called it human cockfighting. Gunn said it’s actually more gentlemanly than traditional boxing. “Boxing is checkers and bare knuckle boxing is chess playing,” Gunn told boxingscene.com. In bare knuckle, “It’s a slower pace, you’re picking your shots, you’re working the body more. And you gotta be careful. You’re not throwing the hardest punch because you don’t want to break your hand.” Even underground, it’s not a street fight or barroom brawl. Saturday’s card, which will be televised on pay-per-view, will bring the sport into the open. Barnett and his opponent, Travis “The Animal” Thompson, a Pennsylvanian with a 7-12-3 boxing record, will square off in a circular ring with hands that can be wrapped to within an inch below the knuckles. The fight is scheduled for five two-minute rounds, but the Barnetts aren’t planning for it to go that long. “Somebody’s getting cut, somebody’s getting a broken nose, somebody might get a broken jaw,” Barnett said. “That somebody’s not going to be me.” Among local fighters, Barnett, with his extensive amateur background, is regarded as a slick technician with fast hands. He’s never been stopped in a boxing match – only by head-kicks in MMA. “As long as you’ve got the hands for it, you should be OK,” Barnett Sr. said. And, just as importantly, the stomach for it. Even the need. Gunn told boxingscene.com that for him, fighting is therapy, a release. For Barnett, that also seems to be the case. He said he’s not in it for the money or recognition. He’ll be paid $3,000, said his manager, Jessica Allen. Rather, Barnett said he wants to be a part of history and something bigger than himself. And maybe inspire someone else who has struggled. For Barnett, it’s ultimately about the “sanctity” of fighting and the purity of a sport that hasn’t been corrupted the way pro boxing has. “To partake in that means the world to me,” he said. And if you don’t get how there is honor in testing yourself that way, then well, you don’t get it. Barnett does, which is why he’ll toe the line Saturday. Ed Miller, 757-446-2372, [email protected] pilotonline.com/sports/other/boxing/article_33a573d8-6040-11e8-92ad-9f1383ccbbd9.html