Kai Stewart loves bare knuckle fighting, but he’s truly a wrestler at heart.
While Stewart lets his fists do the talking in the BKFC Squared Circle, he attributes much of his success in bare knuckle fighting to his extensive background on the wrestling mat. The reigning BKFC World Featherweight Champion wrestled competitively for 17 years before transitioning to BKFC.
“The mindset I have when I’m fighting with BKFC is the mindset that I developed in my many years as a wrestler. The mindset is everything,” Stewart says. “A wrestling pace is much greater than any other pace that there is in combat sports, so that’s the pace that I put on my opponents. Though the technical skill set is very different in the two sports, the mindset is everything, and my wrestling mindset has made me a champion in BKFC.”
At the time of Stewart’s interview for this story, the proud Great Falls, MT product was preparing to coach his team of wrestlers at the CMR Holiday Wrestling Classic, one of the biggest annual wrestling tournaments in Montana. Stewart is passionate about giving back, so coaching wrestling is one of his greatest joys in life – so much so that he doesn’t want to enter fight camp until the wrestling season finishes so he can stay focused on helping his team.
“I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be anything in life without wrestling. I’m just getting started, but as a two-time BKFC World Champion I can now say that I’ve accomplished something, and I owe every bit of that to wrestling – the lessons it taught me, the discipline it gave me, the relationships I made,” he says.
“I want to give kids all the opportunities that I had.”
Bare knuckle fighting can be a selfish sport. Like wrestling, it requires countless hours of training, strict dieting and loads of time spent away from loved ones. If you want to succeed in the Squared Circle, you have to be obsessed with your training and development. That being said, Stewart would like to use his time to give back to bare knuckle fighting the same way that he gives back to wrestling.
“I absolutely want to give back to bare knuckle as well. One example would be the upcoming clinic I have planned, which I hope becomes a regular thing. I’d love to host a tryout, or really do anything I can to help provide opportunities for athletes with BKFC,” he says. “In the end, you can’t forget where you came from. Between bare knuckle and wrestling, I’ve got a lot of giving back that I have to do.”
