Event: BKB 48: Night of Four Kings
Date: November 22, 2025
Location: Charles F. Dodge Center, Pembroke Pines, Florida
Division: Bridgerweight (225 lbs)
Broadcast: VICE, TalkSPORT, Telemundo Deportes Ahora

Two former bare-knuckle champions. Both ranked in the top three of the bridgerweight division. One fight that could go either way for all the wrong reasons.

The Former Champions

Jarome “The Hatchet” Hatch

• Weight: 221 lbs at weigh-ins
• Location: Lehi, Utah
• Ranked: #2 Bridgerweight in BKB
• Background: Former Police Gazette Cruiserweight champion, ironworker

Ike “Hurricane” Villanueva

• Age: 41
• Weight: 224.1 lbs at weigh-ins
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Ranked: #3 Bridgerweight in BKB
• Background: Former BYB Heavyweight Champion, ex-UFC fighter (1-5 record)

Both fighters have held championship gold. Both have been knocked out in spectacular fashion. Both bring significant flaws into this matchup.

Jarome Hatch: The Predictable Brawler

Hatch is durable and compact. He takes punishment, keeps coming forward, and throws bombs. That’s his entire game plan. Every single fight.

He’s constantly ducking and throwing blind overhands. The pattern is so consistent you can set your watch to it. Duck, overhand. Duck, overhand. Repeat until someone goes down. The problem is everyone knows it’s coming. Opponents, coaches, fans, probably the guy selling popcorn in the stands.

This makes him extremely liable to uppercuts. When you duck the same way every time, throwing the same punch from the same position, a competent fighter will time that uppercut and land it clean. Over and over.

Hatch doesn’t really have any entry strategy. He just walks forward and throws. No setups. No feints. No jabs to create openings. He loads up on bombs from way too far out, telegraphing every power shot well in advance. It works against lower-level competition because raw durability and aggression can overwhelm technique. Against smart fighters, it becomes a liability.

He does start using body shots later in fights, which is smart. Body work pays dividends in later rounds when accumulation breaks down an opponent’s structure. But he needs to bring those shots in earlier to get maximum benefit. By the time Hatch starts working the body, he’s already taken significant damage from being predictable up top.

When he loads up on those power shots, he’s highly vulnerable to a proper clinch. Get inside on him when he’s winding up, tie him up, and he’s got nothing. Open season for uppercuts every time he ducks into that same pattern.

Hatch is definitely a brawler. No question. But he’s undersized for the division at 221 pounds. Against bigger, stronger opponents, his one-dimensional approach becomes even more problematic.

The most concerning thing about Hatch is how predictable he is. You’ll know exactly where every single punch is going well in advance. Good fighters exploit that. The question is whether Villanueva has the fight IQ to do so.

Ike Villanueva: The Aging Veteran

Villanueva looked much tighter at 41 than he did in his UFC days. That’s the good news. The bad news is he brings his own set of problems into this fight.

He has great power and throws solid body shots early. That body work could be crucial against a durable brawler like Hatch. But Villanueva gets a bit stiff when he throws and loads up a ton. That stiffness and uprightness is what got him in trouble against Kamil Sokolowski, who caught him clean and finished him quickly.

Sokolowski, for those who don’t know the boxing world, was a genuinely good boxer who didn’t seem to reach his potential. He had skills to exploit stiffness and predictability. He made Villanueva pay for those flaws.

On the flip side, Villanueva won quickly against Eric Olson. But Olson was essentially a gift after Villanueva had lost to two top fighters (Gustavo Trujillo and Sokolowski). That doesn’t tell us much about where Villanueva is at against legitimate competition.

Against DJ Linderman, Villanueva showed the ability to take advantage of a fighter with weak entries. That’s relevant here because Hatch has terrible entry strategy. If Villanueva can capitalize on Hatch’s predictable patterns, this could be his fight.

The problem? Hatch’s one-trick pony approach keeps working even when everyone knows it’s coming. He ducks, throws overhands, eats punches with his face, and somehow outlasts opponents through sheer durability and relentless forward pressure.

Villanueva has the tools to win this fight. Better technical boxing, better body work, the IQ to exploit Hatch’s predictable patterns. But will he execute?

The Complications

Hatch has a better chin than Villanueva. That matters when both fighters are throwing power shots and making mistakes. Hatch can absorb more punishment while continuing to press forward.

But Hatch has also shown the ability to win fights by tiring out fighters’ arms with his head. He makes opponents throw so many punches trying to keep him off that they gas themselves out. It’s not pretty, but it’s effective. When your defensive strategy is “absorb punishment until they get tired,” having an iron chin becomes your primary asset.

Villanueva’s stiffness when loading up could be a problem against Hatch’s constant forward pressure. If he tries to sit down on power shots and gets caught in between, Hatch’s overhand will be there. Predictable or not, if it lands clean on a 41-year-old chin, the fight is over.

Conversely, if Villanueva stays composed and uses his superior boxing IQ, he should be able to time those predictable overhands and counter with uppercuts all night. Hatch ducks into the same position repeatedly. That’s an open invitation for a fighter with Villanueva’s experience.

7 of the last 8 Ike Villanueva fights have ended in the first round. Of his last 16 fights, 12 have ended in the 1st round (3 of those 4 ending in the second). Hatch isn’t staying down in the first.

Pick: Jarome Hatch through sheer will. The pony’s trick rides.

BKB 48: Night of Four Kings airs live November 22, 2025, from Pembroke Pines, Florida on VICE, TalkSPORT, and Telemundo Deportes Ahora.