Bare-knuckle: Sanchez, Dodson score quick victories

Bare-knuckle fighting is a sport of instant gratification for the fans — and of near-instant pain for the fighters.

Albuquerque’s Donald Sanchez needed just 35 seconds of the first round to stop Florida’s Noah Cutter in the middleweight main event of a BKFC Prospect Series card Saturday at Revel Entertainment Center.

A bit earlier, fellow Albuquerquean Eric Dodson needed only 40 seconds to take out Montana’s Dakota Highpine in a featherweight fight.

Neither Sanchez’s nor Dodson’s fights were the shortest of the evening. Kaine Tomlinson of Roanoke, Virginia, stopped Belen’s Apostle Spencer in just 33 seconds.

The entire 10-fight card consisted of approximately 30 minutes of action, or three minutes per fight. Only three fights lasted into the third round — BKFC fights are scheduled for five two-minute rounds — and only one, a co-main event won by South Carolina strawweight Taylor Starling over Tennessean Jenny Savage, went the distance.

The short duration of most of the fights appeared not to bother an enthusiastic, sellout crowd. Revel’s arena seats approximately 3,000.

And there’s more bare-knuckle to come. The BKFC announced on Saturday that Albuquerque’s John Dodson (3-0), Eric’s older brother, will defend his flyweight title against Dago Aguero (1-0) on March 29 at Tingley Coliseum.

The BKFC’s two previous shows at Tingley set attendance and paid gate records for the 6-year-old organization.

In Saturday’s main event, Sanchez (2-1) caught Cutter (3-6) with a right hand to the temple, then landed a left as Cutter was falling to the canvas. Cutter beat the count, but staggered around the BKFC’s circular ring in a failed attempt to regain his equilibrium. Referee Andrew Glenn ruled him unable to continue.

“I feel amazing, man,” Sanchez, 39, said in the ring afterward. “I ain’t no spring chicken. I just want to motivate people, help everybody out. That’s what we do.”

For Eric Dodson, the motivation was simple: get back in the win column after his first BKFC loss. He’d lost to Robert Armas by unanimous decision at Tingley on Aug. 11.

“After the last fight, we did a little bit more homework,” he said. “We watched our opponent a lot more to see his tendencies, but we also watched my own fights to kind of see when I throw stuff how people react.”

Highpine (1-3) barely had time to react, sagging to the canvas under Dodson’s assault in the opening seconds.

Dodson (3-1) said he hopes to find a spot on the March 29 card headlined by his brother.

“I’m not real banged up or anything. I’m ready to get back in there,” he said. “… If they can find an opponent for me, I’m absolutely willing to go.”

The Starling-Savage fight, the only one that went the distance, also was the only one to draw scattered boos from the crowd.

Starling (4-2) controlled most of the five rounds from the outside with the shorter, more compact Savage (3-3) unable or unwilling to close the distance.

The scorecards read 48-47, 49-46 and 50-45 for Starling.

Starling said the occasional boos didn’t bother her.

“That fight might not have been as exciting as everybody wanted it to be,“ she said, “but .. we’re the ones in here getting our faces busted.”

The victory was revenge of sorts for Starling, who’d lost an MMA fight to Savage in 2019.

The evening’s first seven fights all were contested by athletes making their bare-knuckle debuts.

Perhaps the cleanest shot of the night came from Karla Alvarez, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, who trains in Albuquerque at Jackson-Wink. Alvarez caught Belen’s Brittany Horton with picture-perfect right hand, stopping her one second short of the end of round one.

Jackson-Wink went 3-0 on the night. Middleweight Ismael Israilov, a native of Chechnya, stopped Californian Danasabe Mohammed in 1:12 of the first round. Then, J-W heavyweight Juan Adams gradually overpowered Ohioan Matt Adams, who could not continue past the 1:37 mark of round three.

There appeared to be bad blood between middleweights William Albrecht and Freddy Sandoval, both of Albuquerque. The only blood that flowed, however, was that of Sandoval, dropped and stopped by the 46-year-old Albrecht in round one.

31 photos from bare-knuckle fight night in Albuquerque