Estevan Payan halted Omar Avelar in the waning seconds of round one during their BKFC 1 bout. This transpired on June 2nd, 2018 and Payan joined me to discuss the five-year anniversary of the historic bare-knuckle boxing event after over a century of domestic dormancy previously.
Payan spoke to Dylan Bowker of Bare Knuckle News ahead of this historic moment for the sport. Excerpts from the chat are below.
Estevan Payan
Was the excitement there in a big way for being part of the first bare-knuckle boxing event that was regulated in America in over a century?
“Yeah, I was just like oh **** I want to try this. Like I grew up fighting (laughs). I was just a guy who in my neighborhood I was known for fighting. Everyone knew I could fight and that was all bare-knuckle…. Think about UFC. The first UFC that was bare-knuckle. There’s **** going on all the time… I just wanted to fight. I don’t care, this is going to be fun. Let’s fight.”
Estevan Payan continued, “When I talk about BKFC, I was thinking about the movie Gladiator with Cuba Gooding Jr. That’s what I was thinking about. Like I wasn’t thinking about all those boxers; those old two guys (John L. Sullivan and Jake Kilrain). It was like, oh **** this is going to be fun and I remember watching the movie.”
BKFC
What was the feeling like landing your exposed fist for the first time at BKFC 1 and what were the residual feelings in your body following the card?
“I didn’t feel ****. Like if you feel the punch, you’re probably going to break your ******* hand. You don’t want to feel it. You shouldn’t feel it because like I said, if you feel it, that means you’re ******* doing it wrong.”
Estevan Payan continued, “No, I didn’t really have nothing. I think I bruised one of my knuckles a little. But I was fine, I was ******* hitting the bag like two days later. I was hitting the bag like two days later after I got back home. But that’s like how I was telling you earlier if you feel the punch, you’re not punching right. Like if you feel like oh yeah, I could feel it. No, you don’t want to feel the punch.”
BKFC 1
How did it feel getting the first-round stoppage at this historic event?
“I just know that I beat the **** out of him, that’s it. Dude, did you see how much bigger I looked compared to that guy? He was overweight. He came in ten pounds overweight. I was underweight and I was still bigger than him. That’s what I was saying, quality over quantity. Because he was probably still fatter than me but it’s the same thing I say every day, I’m ******* built different. Yes, I’m built different because I’ve built myself different.”
Estevan Payan vs Omar Avelar
Big names like Arnold Adams, Bobby Gunn, Bec Rawlings, etc fought on the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship kickoff event. Do you have any recollections of some of the other fights that were part of BKFC 1?
“No like I said I didn’t think any of them were really that good (laughs). Like I said like it’s basically they were all a lot of bar fights. Well, that’s what I was saying; if you’ve got to think about it, people don’t understand fighting.”
Estevan Payan continued, “Like I said everyone was like oh dude, you were like a bull just rushing forward. Like no. I did not rush forward. If you watched, I boxed. That’s the thing with all of those other fights, a lot of those were just like ******* bar fights. A lot of them were just dumb bar fights. There was like no high-level skill, they were just brawling.”
