Goggleboxing Irish bare knuckle fighters join new reality TV show in bid to beat Americans

Infamous bare-knuckle bruiser James Quinn-McDonagh plans to cash in on the brutal sport with a reality TV show pitting the best from the United States against Irish and British fighters.

The teams of fighters, each guaranteed to take home at least Stg£50,000 will enter a Big Brother-style house to fight for qualification to face their international opponents.

"BK Wars TV is a reality TV show at the beginning, we get 12 heavyweights from the UK and the 12 from the US.

"I've got four Scots, four Irish and four English on my team. There's going to be in-house fighting to get to the last eight. Each fighter is going to take home £50,000 whether he wins or loses, so it's not bad," said Quinn-McDonagh.

There are talks going on with bare-knuckle fight promoters in a number of countries, he said in an Anything Goes podcast interview with James English this week.

Quinn-McDonagh said promoted bare-knuckle fights are "way more safer" than UFC cage fights and even gloved boxing.

"With glove boxing you're taking more punches, you're taking more long-term damage to the head," he said.

He believes that bare-knuckle boxing can catch up with cage fighting with more promoters appearing all around the world.

James Quinn-McDonagh, whose former home in Coolock, Dublin was razed to the ground by a criminal gang to force him out of the area, also spoke about the effects of being shot and stabbed in the past.

Members of his clan were also at the centre of a notorious feud in the Midlands which led to the so-called Dalton Park riot in 2008 and saw 65 people convicted as a result.

Asked about the feuds between the Quinn McDonaghs and with the Nevins and Joyces, he said everything is now "kosher."

Clans

But he also branded a bare-knuckle opponent, Patrick 'Chaps' Nevin, as 'a waste of space' in remarks that could re-ignite bad feelings.

"I do speak to the Nevins and I do speak to the Joyces. Some of the Joyces and the Nevins are actually family of ours. It's all good there at the moment, everyone's speaking, on good terms which is not a bad thing."

"I think 90 per cent of what did happen should never have happened, the feuding between ourselves and the other two clans I'm glad, I'm happy that it's been put to bed and long may it last."

He said the threat of feud violence is very tough on families caught up in the disputes. "It affects you in different ways, it affects everybody in different ways.

"But you know when something starts it's going to last. You've got to live it with it for the next three or four years," he said.

"Then you've got your own sons coming up, your nephews, your grandsons, it's a never ending story that's going to last for the rest of your life, his life and their lives. When is it going to stop? Luckily it's been put to bed at the moment," he added.

"It's a terrible thing where you wake up every morning knowing this s**t is going on in your life. Knowing your father, your brothers, your cousins are involved in trying to kill each other, take each others' heads off and having fights every six weeks.

"All the main families in Ireland and England have seen it first hand and I think 90 per cent of them are sick of now. Most people would like to have a peaceful life."

During the 1990s and early 2000s James Quinn-McDonagh established himself as a bare-knuckle fighter. This part of his life was captured in the ward-winning Knuckle documentary which also featured his brother Michael, now serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife.

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