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

In the world of combat sports, there’s a cruel truth that every tall fighter learns eventually: reach is only an advantage if you know how to use it. Brandon “The Shredder” Shavers is about to get a painful reminder of this reality when he faces British boxing star Dan “Dangerous” Catlin at BKB 48.

Tale of the Tape: The Deceptive Advantage

Brandon Shavers

• Height: 6’4″
• Weight: 170 lbs (fighting around welterweight)
• Reach: 79 inches
• Record: 2-1 in BKFC bare-knuckle
• Background: MMA striker (5-5 pro MMA, most wins by KO)

Dan Catlin

• Height: 5’11”
• Weight: 160 lbs (in boxing career)
• Record: 10-2 as professional boxer
• Background: Former Central Area Middleweight Champion, English title challenger
• Location: Fleetwood, England

On paper, Shavers has everything going for him. Five inches of height. Nearly eighty inches of reach. The kind of physical frame that should allow him to pick apart a shorter opponent from distance. When he sits down on his punches, there’s legitimate power behind them.

But having the tools doesn’t mean you know how to use them.

The Brandon Shavers Problem

Shavers fights like a man at war with himself. He’ll show flashes of proper patience, using that long frame intelligently, pulling back out of range and timing his counters. These are the moments where you see what he could be: a rangy, technical striker who makes opponents chase him into traps.

Then something switches. The discipline evaporates.

Frenetic Footwork, Wasted Energy

Watch Shavers in his BKFC bouts and you’ll notice the nervous energy in his movement. His footwork is frenetic, constantly shifting and bouncing, but not in the calculated way of a master boxer. This is wasted motion that looks busy but accomplishes nothing tactical.

Dan Catlin has built his boxing career on cutting off the ring. He knows how to corral longer fighters, force them to the edges, and eliminate their escape routes. Against frenetic footwork, Catlin doesn’t panic. He walks you down systematically, conserving his cardio for the championship rounds while you burn yours on meaningless movement.

Shavers’ MMA background is telling here. In his 5-5 mixed martial arts record, nearly every win came by knockout and nearly every loss came by submission. He’s a pure striker who never developed ground game, which explains his transition to bare-knuckle. But he’s used to short bursts of explosive action in MMA rounds. The sustained, methodical pace of boxing, especially bare-knuckle boxing’s five two-minute rounds, is a different beast.

Telegraphing with Authority

The more dangerous flaw is what happens when Shavers lets his hands go. He throws with too much muscle behind every shot. Every punch is loaded with power, wound up from his back foot, telegraphed from a mile away. For a technical boxer who makes his living reading opponents and timing counters, this is an engraved invitation.

Shavers constantly overextends himself. He leaves punches out there like he’s got all day to bring them back. For a lanky fighter with those long limbs, this is tactical suicide. One well-timed hook while those arms are extended and that 79-inch reach becomes a 79-inch liability.

Professional boxers spend their entire careers learning to hide their intentions. Subtle shoulder feints, hip rotation that doesn’t broadcast the punch, maintaining guard position until the last possible moment. Shavers throws like he’s trying to knock down a barn door. It’s powerful, it’s committed, and it’s readable three seconds before it arrives.

Enter Dan “Dangerous” Catlin

If Brandon Shavers is a work in progress, Dan Catlin is a nearly finished product.

The British Boxer’s Resume

Catlin’s not some journeyman taking a payday. He’s a legitimate professional boxer with a 10-2 record who held the Central Area Middleweight title and challenged for the English championship. In September 2024, he went ten rounds with Linus Udofia for the English middleweight crown, getting stopped in the final round after getting dropped in the third. That’s a battle-tested professional who’s been in championship rounds and knows what deep water feels like.

The 25-year-old from Fleetwood brings the kind of technical foundation you can only develop in the structured British boxing system. He’s fought at York Hall, one of the most storied venues in British boxing. He’s been in ten-round wars. He understands distance, timing, and the subtle art of making taller opponents uncomfortable.

The Inside Game Specialist

What makes Catlin dangerous for someone like Shavers is his inside defense. The weaving, the bobbing, the subtle head movement that makes longer fighters miss by inches. This is textbook British boxing, taught in the same gyms that produced Ricky Hatton, Carl Froch, and Kell Brook. You don’t learn this overnight.

Catlin doesn’t panic when Shavers uses his reach. He knows taller fighters always look impressive in the first round when they’re fresh and can maintain distance. But Catlin has built his career on a simple premise: get inside, stay compact, and work the body and head with combinations until the taller man’s arms get heavy and his legs slow down.

When you’re used to picking guys off at range and suddenly you’re in a phone booth with someone who knows how to work there, everything changes. Your reach advantage disappears. Your power becomes harder to generate. And all those telegraphed shots become easy counters.

The Strategic Approach

Catlin’s game plan is simple: absorb some jabs early, slip the overhand rights Shavers telegraphs, close the distance systematically, and turn this into an inside fight by round two. Once he’s inside, those long arms become a hindrance. Catlin can work Shavers’ body with hooks, slip out at angles Shavers isn’t used to defending, and capitalize on every overextension.

The British fighter also brings championship-round experience. While Shavers has never been past the fourth round in bare-knuckle (he was stopped in round four against Bryce Henry at BKFC 36), Catlin has gone ten rounds for a title. He knows how to pace himself. He knows when to invest in body work that pays dividends three rounds later. He knows how to make opponents uncomfortable without exhausting himself.

The Matchup: Boxer vs. Technical Brawler

This is a classic striker versus boxer matchup, and history tells us how these typically end.

Shavers has the physical tools to win this fight if he fights smart. Keep Catlin at the end of those punches. Move laterally instead of bouncing in place. Don’t get sucked into trading on the inside. Use that jab to maintain distance instead of winding up for power shots. Be patient when Catlin tries to walk him down.

But based on what we’ve seen from Shavers in his bare-knuckle career, that’s not the fight we’re likely to see. His tendency to overextend, his frenetic but inefficient footwork, his telegraphed power shots: these aren’t minor technical flaws. They’re fundamental problems that a skilled boxer like Catlin will exploit mercilessly.

Catlin, conversely, has a clear path to victory. Pressure intelligently, cut off the ring, slip those telegraphed power shots, get inside, and make Shavers uncomfortable. Once he’s on the inside, start working combinations to the body and head. Make Shavers fight in the phone booth where reach doesn’t matter and technique does.

The Bare-Knuckle Factor

This is Shavers’ BKFC veteran experience versus Catlin’s bare-knuckle debut. However, Catlin’s boxing credentials suggest he’ll adapt quickly. Bare-knuckle boxing favors technical skill and precision striking. The smaller gloves mean every punch lands with more concentrated force, which actually benefits the technical boxer who lands cleaner shots over the powerful brawler who throws wild.

The shorter rounds (two minutes versus three) and quicker pace might initially favor Shavers’ explosive style, but they also mean less time to recover from mistakes. When Catlin slips inside and lands that body shot, Shavers won’t have a full three minutes to work from distance and recover.

The Prediction

Brandon Shavers needs to maintain the discipline to fight at range for five full rounds against a pressure fighter who knows exactly how to make him uncomfortable. The evidence says he can’t. Shavers will try to use his reach early, might even have some success in round one. But Catlin is patient, experienced, and technically superior. He’ll close the distance, weather some power shots, and turn this into an inside fight by round two.

Once Catlin gets inside (and he will get inside), Shavers’ advantages disappear. Those long arms become obstacles. That telegraphed power becomes easy to read and counter. The frenetic footwork becomes exhausting rather than effective.

Catlin finds the opening. A slip, a counter left hook, a perfectly timed right hand landing while Shavers’ arms are extended. The British boxer makes his bare-knuckle debut the same way he made his mark in English boxing: by making the technical look easy against the physically gifted.

Prediction: Dan Catlin by KO, Round 3

Shavers starts fast, uses his reach in the first round. Catlin closes distance in the second, starts working the body. In the third, Shavers overextends on a power shot, leaves himself exposed, and Catlin lands the counter that puts him down. The referee waves it off, and the British boxing star announces his arrival in bare-knuckle with a statement knockout.

The Bigger Picture

This fight is a test of whether raw physical tools can overcome refined technical skill. Bare-knuckle boxing has seen plenty of fighters transition from MMA, relying on power and toughness. But as the sport matures, technical boxers like Catlin are proving that fundamentals matter even without gloves.

For Shavers, this is a make-or-break moment. At 2-1 in BKFC with his losses coming to legitimate competition, another defeat could derail his bare-knuckle career. He needs to show discipline, patience, and technical growth.

For Catlin, this is an opportunity. A knockout victory in his bare-knuckle debut against a physically imposing opponent would immediately establish him as a serious player in the division.

But when the trigon door closes and the referee says “knuckle up,” all that matters is execution. And execution favors the fighter who’s spent years perfecting the craft over the fighter still learning on the job.

The Pick: Dan Catlin gets inside, makes Shavers uncomfortable, and stops him inside the distance.

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