“Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.”
It’s a great line from former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who wasn’t exactly known for his words of wisdom. It describes how a well-made plan can go off the rails at the first sign of adversity.
But for South Philly native Pat Sullivan, his plan is to get punched in the face. Repeatedly. The former hockey enforcer and boxer has never shied away from close combat, and he will measure his toughness in bare-knuckle fighting in front of a packed Wells Fargo Center crowd on Jan. 25. The event is called Knucklemania V and it is a product of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship.
“I could continue with boxing, but my thing is I’m 25 and bare knuckle is new. And it fits me perfect,” said Sullivan, 25, who grew up in the Whitman neighborhood near 2nd and Porter streets. “In boxing, if you got a guy like a Floyd Mayweather who is real smart in the ring, he’ll beat me. But I’m a brawler. I’m a bare-knuckle hockey fighter. It’s perfect for me. This is it for me.”
Sullivan was an ice hockey player during his youth and was highly recruited out of high school, which was split among various institutions including the now-closed National Sports Academy in Lake Placid. Sullivan said he had several offers to play in college, but he couldn’t get his grades to where they needed to be.
“Junior year, the NCAA called and said all I need is 2.1 GPA,” Sullivan said. “I had 10 D-1 schools calling me but I couldn’t even go there because I didn’t have the grades. I was like, ‘I’m good. I don’t need school.’ Then they sent me to Canada to start juniors. Somehow I screwed that up so the only option for me was to play minors.”
At 18 years old, Sullivan was playing in the now-defunct USA Central Hockey League for the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. He had no illusions of being a top scorer.
“I wasn’t a skilled guy,” Sullivan said. “I was just a fighter. That’s how I made it on every team. They called me a suitcase because I got traded so many times. Every week, I had to move across Canada or down to Texas. But Rio Grande is where I really made my mark.”
The Killer Bees played in the State Farm Arena, now called the Payne Arena, in Hidalgo, Texas, which could seat more than 7,000 people. It was his first real taste of a raucous crowd as fists were flying.
“I used to fight in front of 8,000 people,” Sullivan said. “I was 18.”
He was also building a reputation as a tough guy.
“I remember we were playing the Laredo Bucks,” Sullivan said. “They had a huge arena. We were playing a game and their enforcer was out the previous game. He says to me before warmups, ‘Will ya throw me one?’ His face was all half-jammed up. He had teeth missing. I said, ‘Yeah. Hell, yeah!’ ’’
It was around this time that Sullivan built his brawler mentality. In hockey fights, there’s not a whole lot waiting for the perfect shot.
“In bare knuckle and in boxing, you can move and dip and dodge and there’s weight classes,” Sullivan said. “In hockey, you’re not moving at all. It’s just fist to mouth. It’s just who eats more punches.”
Sullivan carried that mentality into his boxing career where he stands at 15-2. He trains at the Marian Anderson Recreation Center at 17th and Washington Avenue alongside some big boxing names that have become good friends. The list includes Sonny Conto, Jaron “Boots” Ennis, Mark Dawson and Elijah Vines.
It wasn’t that long ago, Sullivan considered, at least briefly, working in the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 542. His father, Dan Sullivan, is the president and urged his son to work in construction. Pat had other ideas.
“I played hockey and I boxed my whole life,” Pat said. “Hockey season ended one day and I came home and my dad tried to force me into working. I went on a job for three days and (it didn’t work out).”
His father still doesn’t like the idea of Pat throwing and receiving punches. He never did.
“My father does not like me fighting,” Pat said. “When I was into hockey, he wouldn’t come to the games. He wants nothing to do with fighting. He wants me to be in the union. But he texted me a few days ago when he was up on a rooftop relaxing after work and now he has to stare at the Knucklemania billboard that’s right in front of his face.”
Knucklemania V will actually be Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship’s 125th event according to BKFC founder David Feldman.
“We did underground fights in warehouses and garages in states and cities all around the country and it only took us nine years to get it legal here in Pennsylvania,” Feldman said. “Our first event here in Pennsylvania, we’re going to actually break the combat sports attendance record at the Wells Fargo Center, which is really unheard of.”
Sullivan will make his bare knuckle debut against Kaine Tomlinson Jr. (1-1). They will be joined on the card by another debuting South Philly native John Garbarino, who will take on Apostle Spencer (0-1).
Currently there are 13 matches on the card, which includes the main event of Eddie Alvarez, a former UFC lightweight world champion originally from the Kensington section of Philly, facing Des Moines, Iowa native Jeremy Stephens, a veteran with over 30 UFC fights to his name.
A heavyweight championship bout will be between champion Mick Terrill and challenger Ben Rothwell. There is also a featured women’s fight of Taylor Starling against Bec Rawlings. Tickets are on sale at https://www.bkfc.com/events or at www.wellsfargocenterphilly.com/. Matches are a maximum of five, two-minute rounds.
“It’s very fast-paced and entertaining,” Feldman said. “It’s a circle ring. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. And you’ll hear that sound (of a punch). That sound is the realest sound in combat sports that you can get.”
Sullivan is eagerly awaiting his time to shine.
“It’s going to feel fake,” Sullivan said with a laugh. “It feels fake that my name is attached to the Wells Fargo Center. As soon as I walk out, people might get mad at me because I’m going to sit there for a couple minutes and take it all in. Who knows. It’s up to God what happens after that.”
Sullivan, a devout Catholic, will have his faith in his corner.
“My mother texts me every night to say my prayers before bed,” Sullivan said with a laugh. “But I go to church every Sunday. My whole life, I’ve been a Catholic. It was born in me and it has manifested. Everything I said I was going to do, it all happened. And it happened fast.”
