Taking off the gloves

Yahoo

10-04-2025

SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO) — A Brookings man will be entering the boxing ring next month with a world title at stake.
Josh Dyer will be seeking the light-heavyweight crown in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship in Salt Lake City, Utah.
9-year-old completes nearly perfect bracket
But Dyer isn't the only local pro taking off the gloves.
Dyer is taking part in a sparring session at 605 Boxing and MMA in Tea. But he doesn't pull any punches when sharing his enthusiasm for bare knuckle boxing.
'I like that it's the most brutal combat sport on earth. I'm a little bit of an adrenaline junkie, I like going for whatever the hardest things are, I like to go for that,' Dyer said.
Dyer, whose nickname is 'D-Day,' has been rising up in the ranks of the light-heavyweight division in professional bare knuckle boxing.
'I've knocked every single person out for 12 years straight. I don't like letting it go to the judges,' Dyer said.
Dyer's next bout will be for the world title on May 10th in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. What he lacks in gloves, he more than makes up for in confidence.
'I put in the work. I know what's going to happen. I do my best and if he's better than me then, good luck. But I haven't been beaten in five years, so it works out pretty good,' Dyer said.
Dyer has a background in mixed martial arts, but he says boxing bare knuckles is far more challenging.
'I've had my nose broken several times, my hands broken. I've been punched so hard I was puking up blood. It gets a little brutal,' Dyer said.
Dyer credits his time as a cheerleading captain with SDSU for helping prepare him for his boxing career.
'The funny thing is that as a male, you develop a lot of strength throwing those girls up and down which does translate into a lot of punching power, so it was a very easy transition,' Dyer said.
Dyer says he was injured more often as a cheerleader than as an MMA fighter or a boxer. Now he's cheering-on a fellow boxer who will be making his bare knuckle professional debut later this month.
'I train with Josh a ton, and Josh was like, hey bro, if you want to do bare knuckle, I think you have what it takes,' Traevon Kroger said.
Kroger, of Sioux Falls, who goes by 'Kid Cobra,' was an undefeated featherweight as a regular boxer when he decided to bare his knuckles.
'Ultimately, at the end of the day, I like to stand there and play punch-face and the best way to do it, the toughest way to do it, is with the gloves off, see who's the better man, you know,' Kroger said.
Like Dyer, Kroger has his own championship title aspirations.
'If it turns out I'm as good at bare knuckles as I think I am, I'll be the bare knuckle world champion,' Kroger said.
But making the switch from gloves to bare fists is a big adjustment.
'When you're boxing with gloves, your gloves are your swords and your shield. You can use them to attack, you can also use them to defend. And bare knuckle boxing, there ain't no shield. You got to have good head movement and good foot movement because you can't rely on just putting your hands up,' Kroger said.
A throwback sport, boxing the way prizefighters did in the earliest days, is once again, becoming a big hit.
Kroger makes his professional bare knuckle boxing debut on April 18th in Omaha.
Dyer, meanwhile, will be fighting the current world title-holder Mike Richman, who's from Rosemount, Minnesota.
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