Darren "D-Day" Whitney

Darren Whitney fights bare knuckle for BKFC out of Texas, by way of the Maine woods and a 6-6 run in MMA.

Brad Banyas hosted him on Salty's Fight Talk from the McBastard studio, a couple of weeks out from a fight in Indiana. A friend of both of them named Chris made the introduction, which was all Whitney needed. He says Chris is as real as it gets and that he trusts him completely. Brad had been watching his tape before they sat down and wanted to get to the bare knuckle side of the story. The Indiana fight is October 18 at the Horseshoe Casino, against Adam Brady.

Whitney landed in Texas on a whim, with friends there and no skill set to bring into a ring. He says he was tough and nothing else. Johnny Bedford took him on and taught him jiu jitsu, wrestling and boxing. Bedford was the first BKFC champion, and Whitney intends to follow the same road. He fought for Fury, which feeds the UFC, and says he went after the cream of the crop and took no easy fights. He has faced two UFC fighters, beaten the only man Marco Maderos has lost to, and pushed Maderos the distance in a fight he says could have gone either way. His MMA record is 6-6. The following he has built anyway he puts down to the energy he brings. For Adam Brady he has studied all the tape.

Whitney is direct about why the wins stopped. He could not perform in the ring while his life was off the rails. He had been heavy into narcotics in Maine and left for Texas because, in his word, everything around him had turned toxic. By the time BKFC came up he thought his career was over, since he was getting older and the UFC had gone past him. Then Ronnie clipped him ten seconds into their fight and put him on a knee, and Whitney could feel the room deciding it was another quick finish. He got up. Later Ronnie caught his ear and burst the eardrum. The ear went cold, so he put a poker face on and stepped back until his bearings came back. They threw close to 600 punches between them. He lost on points and took fight of the night.

He is sober and clean now and says nobody else is doing the work for him. His girlfriend, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, tells him to shut up when he starts preaching, and he credits her with making him a better person. He thinks more than he used to about who else carries a loss, because his friends and family feel it too. His answer to that is the line he gives himself afterwards, that it is what he signed up for.