Tai Emery Sees “Blood War” in BKFC Bout at Super RIZIN 3

By
Dylan Bowker
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Tai Emery, BKFC Thailand 3
Tai Emery, BKFC Thailand 3 Credit: BKFC

Tai Emery clashes with Charisa Sigala in a bare-knuckle boxing bout at Super RIZIN 3 on July 28, over a year and a half on from her viral moment in Thailand.

Emery is training in Dubai out of TK MMA after having spent years training in Thailand and sleeping on cold, hard concrete floors. She was doing everything possible to learn her craft after becoming a combat sports athlete later in the game than many.

Tai Emery is returning to bare-knuckle after a bit over a year and a half. BKFC Thailand 4 was her last bout and she fought eventual BKFC Thailand champion Po Denman and went the distance with someone who has knocked out a man in bare-knuckle.

The COVID years were spent in Thailand and she carved out her name on the BKFC’s circuit out in that country. The promotion is now expanding the sport to Japan and Emery will be making history here in the first-ever women’s bare-knuckle boxing bout to transpire in that country.

Emery had previously targeted spending time in Japan as an exchange student in her younger years. It never came to fruition and she’s now finally visiting the country for the first time years later.

Misfits Boxing has also signed Emery with gloved boxing goals in the future for the former football player as well.

Tai Emery

Through that aforementioned fight vs the BKFC Thailand 115 pound titleholder, Emert discovered a leaking breast implant. Her health is now back in alignment and the vigor for competition as well as the general positivity/ appreciation for life gets to once again be expressed in professional combat sports competition.

Emery’s opponent Charisa Sigala embodies the same kind of fighting spirit she has with both having that dogged determination in them to push through injuries, crimson masks, and the like. When discussing Sigala’s overall BKFC resume and skillset, Emery said,

BKFC in RIZIN

“See this is exactly why I said that they’ve chosen the two right crazy women to represent what BKFC encapsulates you know. Like she doesn’t give up, I don’t give up. Other than the fight where she broke her ankle or snapped her ankle in half, she has gone five rounds. Doesn’t die, doesn’t give up, doesn’t even look like a swollen head or a busted face even phases her.”
“So I think for us, what two perfect women to be able to show Japan exactly what bare knuckle is about. Because you do have to be a different fighter. You have to be a different athlete and a different human to be doing bare knuckle. I think we saw that with Mike Perry and what was his name, Luke Rockhold? We saw that in that, like this guy’s a how many (time) world champion UFC, blah blah blah.”
“Always speaking game and then literally gives up from his teeth getting cracked in. Like bro, I’ve lost and had two teeth cracked out. Like we’ve seen Bec Rawlings spit a tooth out. So that kind of shows and that’s just from the women you know [laughs]. Like this is just from the women’s side of bare-knuckle. Like we’re just gritting our teeth and going. I think when we’re seeing some of those crossovers, it’s really making a lot of fighters realize.”

RIZIN

Tai Emery continued, “They’re like oh okay, I’m definitely going to stick to the paddies and the little sparring you know. But Charisa, I’m super excited for it. I also love the fact that they’ve done a 120-pound catchweight. So I’m a 125er, she’s a 115. Obviously, this is taking away my power. So it’s going to be a much more evenly-matched fight.”
“Just because of the weight, the extreme weight cut that I’m going to need to do. I love that they’re kind of doing that to place it as more equal. Like you can see that they really want it, the fight to be a five-round blood war. I think that this is a very high possibility.”

Super Rizin 3

Tai Emery thinks she can utilize the 120 pound limit to become a vehicle to facilitate entertaining fights with both strawweights and flyweights that bookend this catchweight limit. She has called out Paige VanZant in the past and also seems keen on a fight with BKFC strawweight champion Britain Hart. She pointedly stated that she wants a Hart fight for the Baddest Bitch Belt at a later juncture.

Super Rizin 3 also features BKFC flyweight champion John Dodson fighting Takaki Soya under bare-knuckle rules in a non-title affair. Emery is also honoured to be on a massive card with Manny Pacquiao. She appreciates being on big events with legends as Emery made her bare-knuckle boxing debut on the undercard of Buakaw who also made his first fighting foray into gloveless combat.

Ahead of this landmark moment, Emery is embracing her superstar quality as of late. She has heard about this energy her whole life and now finally feels in a place to best utilize it as her bare-knuckle journey coincides with BKFC’s global expansion efforts.

Towards the end of our chat, Emery jokingly called herself an airheaded killer. But then also stated how she just had a brain scan done with the doctor telling her how thick her skull was all around to the scale of two and a half times more than the average person.

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