BKFC card kicks off big combat-sports weekend
Good scraps involving area fighters planned for Friday, Saturday
As Albuquerquean and former UFC interim welterweight champion Carlos Condit once said — he probably said it more than once — “New Mexico loves a good scrap.”
Boy, does it. Bare-knuckle fighting returns to Tingley Coliseum Friday in the form of BKFC 59, the organization’s fifth card staged in the Albuquerque area in the past 18 months.
The BKFC’s previous two cards at Tingley drew a combined attendance of almost 15,000, each in succession establishing a BKFC attendance record. A lower-level BKFC Prospect Series card on Jan. 27 drew a standing-room-only crowd at Revel Entertainment Center, which seats approximately 3,000.
The BKFC, it appears, loves Albuquerque as much as Albuquerque loves a good scrap.
And, as good scraps go, Friday’s BKFC event is to be followed on Saturday by:
■ FightWorld 33, a proam MMA card at Revel Entertainment Center, with Sandia graduate Ty Miller (3-0) facing El Paso’s Travis Arellano (2-4-1) in the main event.
■ Cleveland High School graduate Brian Mendoza (22-3, 16 KOs) facing Ukraine’s Serhii Boharchuk (23-1, 23 KOs) in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a scheduled 12-round bout with the World Boxing Council interim super welterweight title at stake.
Mendoza’s bout will be streamed on Prime Video at no cost to Prime subscribers. The stream is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., preceding the pay-perview telecast of the main card at 6 p.m., featuring a WBC super welter title fight between champion Tim Tszyu and Sebastian Fundora.
■ Albuquerque’s Jose Luis “Guero” Sanchez (14-3, four KOs) battling Mexico’s unbeaten Santiago Dominguez (26-0, 20 knockouts) in a 10-round bout on a Golden Boy Promotions card in Inglewood, California.
The card, featuring a WBA super cruiserweight title fight between Armenia’s Arsen Goulamirian and Mexico’s Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez, is scheduled to be streamed on DAZN, a subscription service, starting at 6 p.m.
■ Albuquerque’s Sharahya Moreu (1-0) in her second professional fight, matched against Jessie Clark (pro debut) in San Antonio Texas.
The card is scheduled to be streamed live on dmpboxing.com. A visit by the Journal to the website did not clarify when the streaming would begin.
It’s no wonder, then, that Albuquerque’s John Dodson, one half of Friday’s BKFC main event — matched against the Dominican Republic’s Dagoberto Aguero in a defense of Dodson’s BKFC flyweight title — said this in a Wednesday phone interview with the Journal:
“(Albuquerque) is the fighting capital of the world. I don’t care what people sit there and say with their fighting styles. We do all fighting styles.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s mixed martial arts, boxing, bare knuckle boxing, Muay Thai, kickboxing, wrestling, judo. We will claim the titles from everywhere across the combat sports scene.”
Of that, there are few better examples than Albuquerque’s Donald Sanchez.
His record, at least that which is verifiable (there’s probably more): MMA: 30-20. Boxing: 5-3.
Bare knuckle: 2-1. On Friday, Sanchez is matched against Dallas Davison (2-2 BKFC) of Great Falls, Montana, in a BKFC co-main event.
THE WEIGH-IN: Dodson, ever the showman, reported for Thursday evening’s ceremonial weigh-in costumed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle — Donatello, the crowd was told.
Dodson (3-0 bare-knuckle, 24-14 MMA) weighed in officially earlier Thursday, presumably without the turtle suit, at 124.8.
Aguero (1-0 BKFC, 15-2 as a boxer) weighed 124.6.
For the light heavyweight co-main event, Sanchez weighed in at 176 pounds.
Davison weighed in at 175.4 pounds.