Exchanges carry an unmistakable sense of finality. In a matter of moments, eyes, cheeks or lips swell, knuckles split and fortunes change. For some, it's brutal, barbaric and blatantly grotesque. For others, it's beautiful, boxing stripped to its purest and unfiltered form.

Bare knuckle boxing has undergone a remarkable transformation from a forgotten relic into one of the fastest-growing attractions in combat sports. Once confined to back-alley lore and regulatory uncertainty, the sport now headlines major arenas, reaches fans internationally and features an expanding roster of former boxing and MMA champions and crossover athletes who are eager to punch a ticket for a second act in their careers.

Promoters point to sold-out venues and growing television audiences that back an insatiable appetite for the savage sport.

Fighters praise their paydays and a shot at renewed relevance, even if a bloody war or being on the wrong end of a viral knockout is inevitable.

Fans are drawn to a product marketed as raw, authentic and refreshingly unadulterated and uncomplicated, a form of fighting that is increasingly gaining traction in a crowded combat sports landscape.

Yet bare knuckle boxing's resurgence and rise has also reignited questions that extend beyond the battlegrounds. Critics insist that the sport simply packages extreme violence for modern spectators while recycling discarded faded fighters to fuel growth in a gory fashion.

As bare knuckle boxing's inflection point continues to push further into the mainstream, more professional fighters are willing to bet their futures, and their faces, on its promise.

On July 18 alone, past-their-prime pugilists Victor Ortiz, Joseph Diaz and Alfredo Angulo will headline the Bare Knuckle Boxing 56 show in Los Angeles, while Javier Fortuna will be featured in the IBA's United States bare knuckle boxing debut show in Miami, which is being promoted by UFC icon and IBA ambassador Jon Jones.

The quartet of former boxers joins a group of notables such as Paulie Malignaggi, Austin Trout, Jamel Herring, James DeGale, Lee Selby, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Hank Lundy, Lucas Browne and John Molina Jr., among others, who have signed up for bare knuckle boxing in recent years. Upstart boxing brothers Fernando Vargas Jr. and Amado Vargas, the sons of former middleweight champion Fernando Vargas, will be making their bare knuckle debuts on a BKB show in London on July 25.

When you talk to promoters running bare knuckle leagues, they suggest that more pro boxers will soon be following suit in what's being described as a "signing spree."

"Bare knuckle boxing is dangerous," Ortiz told The Ring. "I know it's gonna be a war, and there are going to be fireworks. We're gonna be two bloody individuals, but I will hold my hands up high in victory. Today's generation of pro boxers is a soft generation. I'm a workhorse who rises to the occasion. That fire hasn't left me, and I never retired."

The former welterweight titleholder, now 39, has fought in professional boxing three times in the last eight years. Although he hasn't scored a significant win since he outpointed Andre Berto to win share of the 147-pound title 15 years ago, he's the kind of competitor who perfectly fits into the fabric of bare knuckle — a fighter with a following who packs a punch and wants to keep the flame going.

It’s not any different on the MMA side, as former UFC mainstays are trying their hand in the space. The abbreviated list includes Mike Perry, Eddie Alvarez, Darren Till, Yoel Romero, Junior Dos Santos, Fabricio Werdum, Chad Mendes, Josh Dodson, Michael Page, Anthony Smith, Jeremy Stephens, Thiago Alves and Paige Vanzant.

Bare knuckle fighters are paid handsomely, depending on who they are. You eat what you kill, as they say.

Perry, the “King of Violence,” is the poster child for the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship and the sport's soul. Perry left UFC in 2021 after a 15-fight run and an overall MMA record 14-8. From 2022 to last year, Perry cashed in on his name cachet and went 6-0 in bare knuckle against notable peers, the last four by stoppage. Perry parlayed the success to even more lucrative outings in a boxing match against Jake Paul, losing by stoppage two summers ago, and a return fight in MMA against Nate Diaz this May, which he won by stoppage in two rounds.

Perry made $600,000 for his April 2024 BKFC win against Thiago Alves, who took home $200,000 after getting knocked out in the first round. BKFC's event in Los Angeles paid out $1.369 million in combined guaranteed minimum purses for 12 fights, according to figures provided by the California State Athletic Commission.

BKFC, which is fronted by co-owner Conor McGregor, also boasts the former junior lightweight titleholder Herring as one of its champions. Austin Trout, a Miguel Cotto conqueror, Canelo Alvarez rival and former junior middleweight titleholder, was a BKFC titleholder as well and undefeated in his first five appearances until the eve of the Fourth of July, when he made his ring walk to James Brown’s “Living in America” before viciously getting dropped and stopped by Ben Bonner. "Only in America," as the inimitable Don King likes to say.

Bare knuckle was still operating on the fringes of combat sports in America until the Association of Boxing Commissions approved its unified rules in August 2023.

Andy Foster, executive director of the California State Athletic Commission and a former mixed martial artist himself, said it signified a serious shift for the sport once the rules were in place.

"If you'd asked me 10 years ago about bare knuckle boxing, I was opposed to it. I wasn’t a fan. But my thoughts on the subject have evolved," Foster told The Ring. "For my personal taste, as a private citizen, I don't necessarily like it. That’s not the way I came up. But I can't let my own personal animus affect my regulatory judgment.”

Foster credits MMA referee "Big" John McCarthy for pulling him out of his bubble and the way he was thinking.

"John McCarthy reminded me that MMA allows fighters to kick, knee and elbow each other in the head, so what’s the difference once it's a bare fist in much shorter fights? That sat with me for a while. And then I thought back to the very people who were opposed to MMA in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I thought to myself that I’ve become what I was fighting against, and that's when I had to check myself."

The dangers and brutal beauty of bare knuckle boxing is in the eye of the beholder, but studies show it's not as bad as the optics indicate.

Research presented at the Association of Ringside Physicians annual conference in 2020 revealed that bare knuckle boxing had lower concussion and broken hand rates than gloved fights. Data also stated that 27.4% of competitors suffered facial lacerations.

"In boxing, you can endure more punishment repeatedly, which leads to head trauma," Herring told The Ring. "But in bare knuckle, we're not throwing as many punches. We tend to pick and time our shots to take guys out early. You have to worry about injuring your hands more than anything else, and you run the risk of getting cut the longer you stay in there. So you always have to be on your Ps and Qs, because one shot can end it all."

Herring, a former member of the United States Marine Corps, is a fighter at heart. The only boxer to beat Lamont Roach is 2-0 since making his BKFC debut this year and is already the company's bantamweight champion.

Herring, 40, made the transition to bare knuckle because he wasn't getting any meaningful boxing matches after dropping three out of his last four fights, a skid that started with a loss to Shakur Stevenson in 2021.

"Bare knuckle stood out to me not because it was the latter years of my career, but because it was just something different and unique to add to my list of achievements," Herring said. "It's brought a different type of excitement, because anything can happen in there. Fighters are fighters, we love to compete and it's always great to have options to reach new goals.

"Fighting in general is dangerous, period, but you're not taking blow after blow for 12 rounds in bare knuckle like we do in boxing. A sustained beating in boxing can stay with you for a very long time.

"My family has been warming up to bare knuckle, but again they see some of the other fights and are like, 'Damn, this is ugly.' They are always going to worry, but we see people badly hurt all the time in the sport of boxing, with fatal incidents as well."

Foster said his position as a regulator on bare knuckle boxing also evolved because he believes it's clearly no more dangerous than traditional boxing.

"I would argue that it’s probably a lot better, neurologically, but probably a lot worse cuts-wise," Foster said. "This is no more dangerous than the other combat sports that we do. So there are pros and cons to it. From a regulator perspective, I don't have an issue with it if it's done correctly."

Foster added that commissions are still learning, getting better and promised they will continue to improve.

Malignaggi, for one, was a victim of a horrific cut in his last bare knuckle fight in October that left him blind in his right eye for an extended period of time.

"We shouldn’t discount this sport or these guys, because it is paying them good money," Foster said. "Guys come over, but all of the boxers and MMA fighters don't do well. But there are some of them that do incredibly well under the rule set. Look at Mike Perry, who's a very, very good MMA fighter, but he might be the best bare knuckle fighter. If they can make a living, and it's not more dangerous than the other stuff that we regulate, I don't see the issue."

Another wild card in the bare knuckle equation, and someone who could take the sport to new heights, is the much-maligned McGregor, whose UFC career is standing on one leg, literally and figuratively, after he endured another injury last week following a five-year hiatus.

“I would do [bare knuckle],” McGregor said while promoting a BKFC event three years ago. “Yes, I would do it, and I’d be happy to do it. It’s hard to get a boring fight in it, and it’s actually almost impossible for a boring fight to happen in it, and I’ll tell you why: no other discipline or sport can say that there’s a zero percent chance of having a boring fight.

“Boxing can be a snoozefest, MMA can be a snoozefest — there’s no chance of a boring fight in bare knuckle because even if it is just a back-and-forth jab match, even a jab splits the skin. The split skin causes panic in the ring, and the crowd rises, and there’s zero chance of a boring fight. So it’s interesting. I’d be up for it, for sure. Why not?”

Bare knuckle boxing certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea. Luke Rockhold, a former UFC champion and bare knuckle competitor, labeled it "a dumbass sport" that is all about who’s "willing to lose their face first for f------ nothing.”

Jaron Ennis, the WBA and WBO 154-pound champion, is another top fighter who won't ever entertain the idea of ungloved boxing.

"I can't even describe it. It's crazy. This is something that I would never do," Ennis said on the night Trout got knocked out. "This is dangerous. I don't know. This might be worse than boxing, so I don't know. I can't really say, but I wouldn't do this. I will tell you this now."

Foster said just because people don't like bare knuckle, it doesn't mean that it should be dismissed or, worse, discontinued.

"The public and market will decide whether they want to watch it or not," Foster said. "It wasn't too long ago when mixed martial arts was treated just like bare knuckle, was banned from everywhere and didn’t have regulation and was pushed underground and taken off pay per view, and look where it is now."

Promoters who are running the three most significant bare knuckle boxing companies — David Tetreault (BKB), David Feldman (BKFC) and Umar Kremlev (IBA) — are bullish on the sport's potential. And although former UFC star Jorge Masvidal hasn’t competed in bare knuckle, he's an eager entrant as the proprietor of the upstart, multidisciplinary version billed as Gamebred Bareknuckle MMA.

"Bare knuckle boxing is in a significant and really high growth cycle right now," Tetreault told The Ring. "It's an audience that really absorbs the content. They love the fast pace. They appreciate the way fighters come to fight. There's no Tom and Jerry-type fights here."

BKB has been around since 2015 and is now broadcast on linear television via VICE TV, Bally Sports and Telemundo in the United States as well as social media on TikTok LIVE. In the UK and Ireland, talkSPORT is the home of BKB.

BKFC, which has held nearly 150 events since launching in 2018, streams its shows internationally on DAZN. Triller acquired a majority interest in BKFC in February 2022.

Earlier this week, BKFC partnered with FOX Nation for a new original documentary competition series billed as "World's Baddest Man," which will debut next summer and be hosted by McGregor. Feldman billed the move as a "bold new chapter for combat sports." Feldman also recently announced that BKFC is headed to Boston and the famed Fenway Park for its next show August 29.

The IBA has also emerged as a global player in bare knuckle boxing. After staging five shows in Russia, its sixth event heads to the States. That organization is leaning on combat sports promoter Nelson Lopez and Jon Jones as a figurehead to steer the ship in America.

"We're aiming to revive bare knuckle boxing around the world across markets like Russia, France, China, Kazakhstan and more," Kremlev told The Ring. "Not everyone can become the best pro boxer, but they can become the best bare knuckle boxer. It's another opportunity and way for fighters to shine. Bare knuckle fighting is the ancestor of boxing. Boxing's history is based on bare knuckle, and the rules for modern boxing were developed from it."

Tetreault said there is room for more than only one organization to have a seat at the bare knuckle table — just how many remains to be seen. So Tetreault is combining his experience as a top executive at Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions as well as Triller, iHeart Media, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, to help spearhead BKB's continued breakthrough with a signing spree specifically targeting pro boxers and MMA fighters.

"I can't treat this like a boxing promoter. I have to treat it as a sports and entertainment team that is watched by millions globally," Tetreault said. "We really see strength in opening up the sport to boxing fans, who may have grown a little bit tired of 12-round fights where much isn't happening. I realized that one of the things that was missing in our stable were bona fide former world champions from boxing, so we're doubling down on that and up-and-coming boxers."

BKB is also leaning on Fernando Beltran's Mexico-based Zanfer Boxing to build a pipeline of Mexican fighters with an eye toward Latin American expansion. BKB's next voyage in the market takes place September 19 in Tijuana with its champion, Julian Fernandez.

"We're going to crawl, walk and run into Mexico and even deeper depending on how we do," Tetreault said. "There's a lot of education that goes into sponsors, broadcasters and even regulators, making them aware of the realities and medical situations. There's not a safety situation, but the optics can be a little bit different.

"From a business standpoint, there is a massive acceptance into bare knuckle. They're all coming around, and some are even talking about acquisitions. It's a huge milestone and a huge deal to be in that position."

Whether bare knuckle boxing ultimately cements itself a permanent seat alongside boxing and MMA or remains a polarizing niche spectacle will depend on more than blood-soaked highlights.

Its future will be shaped by ongoing regulation, medical research, potential for even more commercial growth, and its ability to develop stars whose appeal resonates beyond the spectacle of violence.

What can no longer be disputed, however, is its growing influence. As promotions fight for market share, distribution deals expand, and more established fighters cross over, bare knuckle boxing is no longer asking for acceptance.

It is forcing the combat sports world to confront an uncomfortable question: Is this the future of fighting or simply its most unforgiving evolution?

Manouk Akopyan is The Ring’s lead writer. Follow him on X and Instagram: @ManoukAkopyan