46-year-old Demarcus “Chop Chop” Corley is a born fighter. A warrior through and through, Corley has faced a whole number of great fighters and world champions and Corley has shared the ring with all manner of fighting styles: sluggers, master boxers, lethal punchers, tricky and awkward guys, you name it, Corley has faced it. So what does a veteran fighter who has pretty much done everything but doesn’t want to quit fighting do? In Corley’s case, he goes into another combat sport; in this case, bare-knuckle fighting.
Corley is set to make his bare-knuckle debut on March 19th in Biloxi, Mississippi, the former WBO champ at 140 pounds signing with BKFC. Corley will face Reggie Barrett Jr, a former BKFC title challenger who also has an MMA background. Who knows what we can expect to see in this, the chief support to the Leonard Garcia Vs. Joe Elmore main event!
Corley really has been around forever. The southpaw who was born in Washington DC went pro way back in May of 1996 and he was WBO light-welterweight champ from 2001 to 2003. Among the big names Corley has shared a ring with are, Randall Bailey (who was all set to try his hand at bare-knuckle fighting a few months back, only to evidently change his mind), Zab Judah, Floyd Mayweather, Miguel Cotto, Junior Witter, Devon Alexander, Marcos Maidana, Lucas Matthysse, Ruslan Provodnikov, and Viktor Postol. Now that’s some astonishing resume. Who knows how much “Chop Chop” has left to offer after going to war with all those big names as well as quite a few other good fighters?
Corley has not boxed since May of 2019, when he suffered a TKO defeat at the hands of Custio Clayton in Ontario, Canada. A quite amazing 51-33-1(28) overall, Corley lost his last four but only Custio managed to stop him. Overall, Corley has been stopped eight times. Yet Corley talks well, he looks in far better shape than one might expect considering the length of his ring time, and Corley keeps himself in good condition, never ballooning between fights. Bare-knuckle fighting is different, however. A whole lot different. As Paulie Malignaggi discovered, it can be bloody (it almost always is) and it can be extremely tough on the bones, the hand bones mostly.
The notoriously brittle-handed “Magic Man” was referred to as pretty much crazy for stepping into the bare-knuckle arena, and it’s likely many fans will say and think the same thing about “Chop Chop.” Let’s see if Corley can go one better than Malignaggi and win his bare-knuckle brawl. As tough a fighting man as Corley truly is, we should not write him off. I do wonder, though, how much time Corley has had to ready himself for his crossover. March 19 is not far off at all.
