Hawaii mixed martial arts pioneer T. Jay Thompson takes the gloves off
For T. Jay Thompson to come back and promote a fight in Hawaii, it had to be something he truly believed in. The longtime promoter of Super Brawl and Icon Sport events in the late 1990s and 2000s is bringing combat sports back to the Blaisdell Arena with the first Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship show in Hawaii on April 11.
The 12-fight card, which will be available on YouTube, Fubo and the ...
For T. Jay Thompson to come back and promote a fight in Hawaii, it had to be something he truly believed in. The longtime promoter of Super Brawl and Icon Sport events in the late 1990s and 2000s is bringing combat sports back to the Blaisdell Arena with the first Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship show in Hawaii on April 11.
The 12-fight card, which will be available on YouTube, Fubo and the BKFC app, marks Thompson’s return to combat sports in Hawaii for the first time in over a decade. At one time, mixed martial arts shows — featuring the likes of Niko Vitale, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Robbie Lawler and Egan Inoue — could routinely sell out the 8,000-seat arena on the corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Ward Avenue. Now, a new kind of fighting is emerging as the next combat sport to gain popularity.
“I’ve been watching BKFC for like five or six years, not only as a fan, but as a promoter, and watched them start taking big chunks of ground in that combat sports space,” Thompson said recently. “It’s the fastest growing sport in the world right now. ” According to its website, BKFC is the first promotion allowed to hold a legal, sanctioned, regulated bare knuckle event in the United States since the 1880s.