Aspen Ladd is embarking on her BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing debut this weekend but already has multiple belts in her focus. Following her impressive BKFC outing, which saw her debut in gloveless combat, Ladd prepares to fight a former BKB welterweight title challenger, Bianca Daimoni. An intriguing super lightweight bout bolsters BKB 58, which transpires on August 29 and emanates from Miami, Florida.
Delving into the timeline from last November, which saw her Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship debut to where she is now preparing for the BKB Mighty Trigon on Saturday, Ladd said [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“It was a whole lot of being told you’re going to fight, you have a fight, or we’re trying to get you a fight, and then nothing. I’m not okay with waiting for six, seven, eight months and fighting maybe once a year. That’s not cool. I want to build a record. I want to; well in bare knuckle. I’ve done other things obviously, but I enjoyed what I did.”
“I enjoy the sport of bare knuckle, but you can’t low or learn grow anything in fighting once a year, right? So I was like this is not working for me. So we ventured out, had discussions with other people that were incredibly professional. Started having that conversation and yeah ended up with BKB because I liked everything about them.”
BKB 58
Being one of the more well-traveled prize fighters in the game having fought for UFC, Bellator, PFL, and BKFC to name a few. Touching on being a multi-sport combat athlete and how any possible options that could generate for her, Ladd stated
“So, the cool thing is with BKB, I can still compete in other combat sports if I choose to, but right now Bare Knuckle is my focus, right? So, they’re my home for that. If I choose to go another route, it has to make sense time-wise with what I’m doing with BKB. Yeah, obviously I’m MMA. MMA is my first love and still it’s something that I’m good at and I enjoy. So, could I return to MMA at some point? Yes. But BKB will still be my home for bare knuckle fighting.”
Touching upon how exciting it is to actually take on some of the independent contractor benefits of being a fighter in an embodied way whereby BKB is supporting that, Ladd explained
“No, one of the; I mean there is many factors of why I chose to go with them, but one of the things I saw leading up to it was how they supported their BKB athletes in their boxing fights, right? Like they’re fully supportive. There’s no anger, no issues. It’s like, okay, they don’t just say you have an opportunity to, they’re actually they’re real about it, right?”
“So that made me feel a lot better because obviously I want to do multiple things. Even though this is my focus at the moment and it will continue to be, my entire goal with this organization is get the belt, and then there’s multiple weight classes I could fight in, right. So I am on a quest for belts at BKB.”
BKB Miami
As far as eyeing multi-division championship goals in BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing, Ladd said
“It’s very possible. So where I’m at right now, the 140 lb weight class is perfect for me, right? But there’s two other options here, but they would have to make sense. So, and I love; that’s another reason, the boxing weight classes. My entire life, I would have been a 140. For me, 135 is very, very difficult, but doable with the right circumstances. 147 is easy. 140 is perfect. So, depending on where the opportunities take us, we’ll see.”
Ladd is already attracting big attention as evidenced by BKB champ Jamie Driver posting a smiley face emoji on a Tim Wheaton Instagram post regarding her signing to BKB. Succinctly responding to that comment, Ladd stated
“Oh, I certainly should be.”
BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing
The California native is clearly ardently focused on her bare-knuckle path, and when asked if there was a certain revelatory piece that’s inspiring her broader path in the world of gloveless combat, Ladd noted that
“It did. So there’s always some trepidation when you take on anything new, right? Especially bare-knuckle. Coming over from MMA, you think about, it’s like, “Oh, there’s no protection. My face is going to get broken. I’m going to break my hands every time I fight. It’s going to be; There’s going to be a lot of physical toll. We’re going to take a lot of time off in between.”
“But the reality of that, at least for me, it’s not for everybody, right? I came out of it fine. My hands felt better than they do with; because the MMA gloves like they’re weird. Like your hands are pulled in odd directions. The solidness of being, well and we also trained very, very specifically to hit right, to get stronger, to make sure that you don’t whack something you shouldn’t, let’s say, for months and months and months on end.”
“So the precision. So you focused more on precision and less protection, but getting in there and actually experience it, the bare bones quality of the combat. I loved it. Like I like getting right to the point when you fight, right? I don’t; It’s like there’s no time to be boring with bare-knuckle. Obviously with BKFC, their ring’s even a little bit bigger than the Trigon. I haven’t been in a real one yet, but we’ve like mapped it out in the gym.”
“Like there there is absolutely no breathing room. It’s going to be go and you’re on each other, which I like. Like I like that part of fighting, right? So, yes, it was kind of a revelation for me. It’s like, okay, this is not exactly what I thought going in. I really like this. I want to keep doing this. So, that’s been my goal since the first fight. It’s just getting drug out as far as when that fight would be.”
The compact nature of the Trigon seems to fit the 31-year-old’s fighting style, and when addressing how this seems like a great dynamic for exciting the viewers this weekend, Ladd said
“Most certainly. Yeah. No. So, as soon as I saw it, I was like, “Oh, this is this is kind of exciting.” So I remember we put it all; because you do that too for MMA. Whatever sport you’re fighting in or whatever size ring you’re fighting in for your sparring, you map it out. It’s like, “Oh, this is this is tiny. This is nice.””
Aspen Ladd says BKB is “on their s**t” ahead of promotinal debut effort
Aspen Ladd brings the approach of a methodical, calculated fighter to all athletics, and that includes bare-knuckle conditioning work and things of that persuasion. Expounding a bit upon some of the specifically tailored work for this literal bare-bones sport, Ladd explained that
“Yeah. I mean, there’s so much you don’t really; I mean, everybody shares their training clips, right? But there’s a lot you don’t talk about and you just do it, right. But like the behind the scenes things and I don’t know how other people are doing it for Bare Knuckle. I know how old-timers did it because my former, only former coach cuz he retired. He had done bare knuckle in his youth. So, we did a lot of things that he had done preparing when he was fighting. but yeah, so I don’t know how everybody’s doing it. I just know that there are certain steps we’ve been taking to do it right basically.”
When asked if she learned any veteran bare-knuckle fighting tricks from her retired coach, Ladd stated
“Everything’s a little bit different and back then there was; rules were kind of a suggestion as opposed to a fixated thing. So yeah, he knows all kinds of things.”
BKB
In a scenario where your goal is gold, fighting a former title challenger in the bare-knuckle world does serve that desired trajectory well. When asked for her thoughts on what Bianca Daimoni brings to the table as an opponent here in Miami, Ladd said [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“Yeah. No, she’ll be a tough opponent. They’re not; that’s not a walkthrough whatsoever. she has experience. She looks solid. she’s obviously fought for BKB a couple times now, and one of them was against the title holder, but she’s got MMA experience, too. So, she should be a little bit more aware of certain things there. But yeah, she’s going to be a tough and beyond worthy opponent to get this show basically this party started with. But yeah, no, she’s going to be tough.”
This fight is massive in a localized way, but when asked about the sentiment about fighting on such a stacked card, Ladd stated
“No, I was thrilled and that was the other thing. So BKB is, for lack of a better way to put it, on their s**t. So from the time that you’re talking, they answer every question, right? But from the time you sign with them to when you have a fight booked to and you could obviously ask for certain things, right? originally after we had done the signing, they wanted me a little bit further out, but it’s like cuz I’ve been in camp forever. It’s like I would really like to fight, if it’s okay, a little bit sooner than that. So I ended up getting the Miami card, which I’m so grateful for. then within two days, they had an opponent booked. Like just how concise they are with everything. is like, “This is fantastic.” then they sent over her and was like, “Okay, this is a tough chick. That’s great.” Like just it’s been smooth. It’s been a very smooth transition.”
