Barstow boxer Andrew Angelcor finds a thrill in shift to bare-knuckle fighting

After arriving home in Barstow from a professional fight in Colorado last weekend, Andrew Angelcor sat on the couch with his wife and watched his performance on replay.

His wife had watched the action live, but she wasn’t too thrilled about it.

After all, her husband is competing inside a ring but it’s not your typical boxing fight: Angelcor competed in his second bout in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.

“It’s nerve-racking because I know that he is willing to die out there in the ring,” his wife, Keisha, said. “Those last few minutes before the fight is where I feel like I have a knot in my stomach. I get sick to my stomach. It feels like I can’t breathe while watching the fight.

“I’m just counting down the time until the round ends because I know that he’s OK for that minute in between the rounds. It’s just painful until the fight is over. I don’t like it, but I love him and support him 100% in whatever it is that he loves doing.”

The fast-paced sport isn’t for everyone: Two ungloved fighters complete in five rounds of two minutes each. The fighters’ hands are wrapped, almost like boxers’ underneath their gloves. But BKFC fighters are not allowed to wrap their hands within an inch of the actual knuckle.

The rounds start with both competitors standing in the center of the ring about an arm’s length apart.

Some people love the nonstop action, others may say it’s too brutal a sport for them.

For Angelcor, BKFC provided a thrill like no other.

“I love the savagery of the sport because there is no faking it. You can’t sit on the ropes. You can’t absorb punches with your gloves. You can't dance yourself to victory. It truly separates men from boys,” said Angelcor, who suffered quite a few knicks and cuts in his recent bout. “You feel everything. You can’t just shell up, because even taking punches on your wrists and forearms hurts. You bleed easier, swelling happens faster. If you don’t have a strong chin, or don’t have heart, you’ll never make it in this sport.”

Fighting for BKFC for just the second time, Angelcor scored a third-round knockout over Van Vo on Oct. 15. The 32-year-old competes in the lightweight division.

Angelcor’s wife didn't like watching him suffer a few cuts after Vo landed a few jabs.

“She said she was nervous watching, but she supports me 100%. My wife is the most important member of my team because without her support, or holding down our home, I’m not able to continue fighting,” Angelcor said.

BKFC wasn’t even something Angelcor ever thought of doing until last year.

The Barstow resident hoped to one day become a professional boxer fighting under the bright lights.

“I found boxing because I grew up in a pretty typical troubled home, and saw things that kids shouldn’t see,” Angelcor said. “I fell in love with the sport because I was always getting bullied and picked on because I was a small kid. Then boxing became an outlet and poured everything into boxing after that because I never really had anything else.”

But it wasn’t enough for him. The pressures of providing for a family, along with a few self-admitted selfish mistakes,  eventually caught up to him and deterred those prizefighting hopes. Angelcor has three children, ages 8, 6 and 2.

“I thought I was giving it my all, had plans to turn pro by the age of 23 but because of a double life that I was living, I ended up in jail,” Angelcor said. “I went through a few years where I was in and out of jail and rehab, just making a lot of bad decisions. But in 2017, by the grace of God, I got sober on Nov. 14, 2017.

“My openness comes from me wanting to reach out to the underdogs in life. I want people out there that are struggling with addiction or alcoholism, or even if life is kicking in their ass and they feel like there is no hope, that’s not true. It’s far from it.”

Court records show a handful of misdemeanor arrests. Angelcor's first run-in with the law as an adult came in August 2013, and prosecutors charged him with a felony after being arrested on suspicion of robbery. He was later convicted of obstructing an officer and grand theft, and sentenced to a year in jail, along with three years of probation.

Once sober, Angelcor turned his life around and began making an honest living. Angelcor ventured into personal training and coaching at Victory Fitness in Barstow.

With just a handful of clients, Angelcor found himself without an income once the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world.

He took up advice to enroll in classes at Barstow Community College soon after the pandemic “made the world a bit weird,” Angelcor said.

“I’m going to be honest, I only went to school for financial aid to feed my family,” he said. “I was taking classes and the financial aid was helping my family. And before I knew it, I was told earlier this year that I was ready to graduate. I never pictured myself ever having a college education.”

He graduated with a degree in kinesiology, and his career goals are to one day open his own boxing gym.

"I'm fully interested in being surrounded by the fight game in becoming a champion and then building a champion," he said.

As for the BKFC, Angelcor joined the organization after joking to his wife last year that a bare-knuckle bout was on his bucket list.

Angelcor finally got the chance to compete in his first professional boxing match in March in Mexico, and won the bout.

Less than two months later came a contract from the BKFC, which began in 2018 and has built a steady following since.

There are 563 men and women competitors currently listed on the BKFC's fighter roster, ranging from the strawweight to heavyweight divisions.

The organization has held 18 fight cards this year, with at least two more planned before the end of December. Fans can typically expect around 10 fights through the main and preliminary cards.

“It felt so amazing to follow through on what I started 15 years ago,” Angelcor said. “Then this opportunity sort of fell into my lap after my manager, Scott Farley, suggested I try out the  BKFC. I agreed and three days later I got a contract for a fight in Montana on April 30. I got the fight of the night after a five-round war with Timmy Mason.”

Angelcor hopes to get back in the ring in December to end the year with three BKFC bouts under his belt.

He is hopeful to land a fight against someone ranked among the top lightweights in the organization. BKFC currently lists Chad Mendes, Robbie Peralta, James Lilley, Martin Trey Brown and Bobby Taylor as the top five lightweights.

“We’ll see how I heal up,” he said. “With this fight, my whole intention was to let the entire lightweight division know that I’m a problem for anyone they put me in there with. One year from today, I want to either be fighting for the belt or defending it.”

Daily Press reporter Jose Quintero may be reached at 760-951-6274 or JQuintero@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DP_JoseQ.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: BKFC: Barstow boxer Andrew Angelcor fights as lightweight