Tonight (Friday), at the Biloxi Civic Center in Biloxi, Mississippi, former WBO junior welterweight champion DeMarcus ‘Chop Chop’ Corley makes his bare knuckles debut against Reggie ‘Eaz-E’ Barnett Jr. of Virginia Beach, VA. Incredibly, the 46 year-old Corley weighed in at 135 pounds for this fight, five pounds lower than his championship weight all the way back in 2001-2003, the years of his reign. With a current boxing record of 55-33-1 with 28 knockouts, Corley defeated Felix Flores for his title in June 2001 and defended against Ener Julio and Randall Bailey. In June 2003, Corley lost a split decision to Zab Judah. In his next fight, Corley fought twelve rounds against boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. Among the other champions on Corley’s resume are Miguel Cotto, Junior Witter, Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov and Viktor Postol.
The popular Barnett Jr. sports a BKFC record of 5-1. With victories over Travis Thompson, Clay Burns, Rusty Crowder and Matt Murphy, Barnett Jr. will look to stay in the win column following a unanimous decision victory over Abdiel Velazquez on September 9, 2020. His only loss came to then BKFC World Champion Johnny Bedford on June 22, 2019 at BKFC-6.
Headlining the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship pay-per-view event (available on Fite.TV) is a lightweight grudge match between Leonard ‘Bad Boy’ Garcia, (18-13-1), fighting out of Lubbock, TX and Joe ‘The Hitman’ Elmore, (13-12), of Atlanta, GA. “Leonard Garcia against Joe Elmore is a true bad-blood match and perfect for our main event,” said BKFC President David Feldman. Both guys have wanted to fight each other for a long time and both have promised to finish the other in striking fashion. DeMarcus Corley is a former world champion boxer who has fought numerous big names over the last twenty years and surely will be tested by Reggie Barnett Jr. who is excited to welcome him to BKFC.”
Garcia made his BKFC debut on February 2, 2019 at BKFC-4: USA vs. Mexico with a sensational second round knockout of Julian Lane. Against Elmore he will be looking to bounce back into the win column following a loss to Jim Alers at BKFC-7 on August 10, 2019.
Moving quickly through the BKFC ranks, Elmore stopped Will Chope in the first round at BKFC-11 on July 24, 2020 and followed that up with a unanimous decision victory over Tom Shoaff on September 11, 2020 at BKFC-12.
BKFC 16 weigh-in results below:
Joe Elmore (165 pounds) vs. Leonard Garcia (165.2);
Demarcus Corley (135.2) vs. Reggie Barnett Jr. (135);
Arnold Adams (247.9) vs. Bobo O’Bannon (258.1);
Noah Cutter (165.5) vs. Kaleb Harris (164.5);
Scott O’Shaughnessy (184.9) vs. Melvin Guillard (183.8);
Jason Fish (224.6) vs. Adrian Miles (227.5);
Spencer Ruggeri (134.7) vs. David Diaz (136);
Elvin Brito (163.8) vs. Brad Kelly (166);
Zion Tomlinson (176) vs. Tyler Hill (176); and
Eric Thompson (186) vs. Ryan Jones (185.7).
