Combat sports commission wants authority to oversee bare-knuckle fights

Taylor Starling lands a punch on Britain Hart during a bout at the Buffalo Chip Campground in Sturgis during the 2024 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. (Courtesy of Sturgis Buffalo Chip)

The South Dakota Athletic Commission wants lawmakers to give its members the authority to oversee bare-knuckle boxing in light of a Sturgis Motorcycle Rally event last month.

The commission was established in 2014 to oversee boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts events. Promoters follow rules on insurance, medical staff and safety, and must pay a fee to the commission to fund its regulatory operations.

None of the combat sport categories listed in the law can hold events in South Dakota without sanctioning by the commission and adherence to its rules.

But the law doesn’t cover all combat sports.

Attorney general: No authority without gloves

Last year, commissioners heard from an organization that aimed to hold a slap-boxing event in South Dakota. But an attorney general’s opinion on the matter, issued in August 2023 , said under the language of the law that created it, the commission only has authority over fights in which fighters wear gloves and protective gear.

As a result, the commission proposed a bill to expand its authority. The Department of Labor, under which the commission operates, did not bring the bill forward, however.

Jennifer Stalley, the commission’s executive director, said during a Friday virtual commission meeting that she’s unsure why the bill languished during the 2024 session, but that she hopes to see it reintroduced.

The event in Sturgis took place Aug. 3 at the Buffalo Chip campground, a prime location for revelers at the annual motorcycle rally. Stalley said the promoter, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship , had asked the commission to sanction the event. She had to turn them down, based on the attorney general’s opinion.

The Wyoming Combat Sports Commission stepped in to sanction the event, she said. The promoter voluntarily sought the sanction of Wyoming, even though South Dakota law didn’t require it to do so. The group has also signaled that it wants to come back to Sturgis next year.

That fact pattern ought to sway lawmakers, Stalley said.

“The thing that has changed is that there has now been a bare-knuckle event that was overseen by another state because we didn’t have the authority to oversee it,” Stalley said.

The good news, she said, is that the company involved in the Sturgis fights voluntarily sought out oversight and ran “a well-regulated event.” But that might not happen with every company.

“The bad thing is, now you’ve shown people that this can take place without regulation,” Stalley said.

Commissioners: Lack of authority could draw bad actors

Commissioners voted to support advancing a bill to the labor department that would add language on unarmed combatants to the law.

“It’s already happening in the state, and it’s probably going to continue happening,” said Jeremy Cox, a commissioner from Bancroft.

Commissioner Chet Kilmer of Spearfish asked whether adding bare-knuckle combat would put the group in line to regulate professional contests in sports like jiu-jitsu, whose combatants don’t wear gloves.

Stalley said that once the commission is authorized to regulate bare-knuckle fighting, the group could decide to exempt certain kinds of competition from regulation if it chose to.

It could also decide to flatly deny sanction for any bare-knuckle event.

“If you decided you did not want to allow bare-knuckle fighting, you would be able to say ‘there is no bare knuckle fighting in South Dakota, period,’” she said.

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The commission also discussed an inquiry on a possible South Dakota event from a group called Redneck Brawl . That organization promotes matches between amateur competitors, Stalley said, who wear sparring gloves to compete for cash prizes.

The use of gloves would put such fights under the commission’s purview, Stalley said. But she also said it seems akin to the kind of contest the commission was established to avoid, meaning one involving “people with no experience in a ring getting into a ring and possibly getting hurt.”

The commission took no action on the Redneck Brawl inquiry, as there was no formal event application, but Commissioner Kaleb Paulsen referenced it while expressing support for bare-knuckle regulatory authority.

“What’s to stop an organization like Redneck Brawl from saying ‘OK, the loophole is to come in and do bare knuckle,’” Paulsen said.

The Department of Labor did not immediately respond to questions on its failure to introduce the combatant bill this year, or on whether it would support a similar bill in 2025.