Harry Gigliotti was on a rough road in professional boxing. A skilled fighter with no clear path to the top, he was being called to test the next era of talented Olympians and top prospects. Then, he found a home in an unlikely place, bare-knuckle boxing.
Since the switch to bare-knuckle boxing, he is now ranked the No.2 bare-knuckle fighter in the world.
Gigliotti, the 29-year-old junior welterweight, turned professional in January 2019. Things were never easy as he lost his second professional fight to Kris Jacobs via a majority decision. With only a few amateur fights and a loss early on his record, it didn’t matter about his love for the sport or his family’s history in boxing. Haverhill, Massachusetts’ Gigliotti seemed destined to become a stepping-stone to future contenders in their development phase. In fact, as an amateur Gigliotti was only 4-7 before turning pro.
“I always thought amateur boxing was going to be like pro boxing,” Gigliotti told BoxingScene. “You get promoted. They build up the fights. I didn't know you're gonna be fighting like every weekend in a row.”
Amateur boxing is a grind. Most spend their own money to go to tournaments, which are often not what most young fighters anticipate. It is not the bright lights of Vegas, but rather a packed boxing gym with 40 fights starting at two in the afternoon and going into the evening. National tournaments are marathons, a week-long commitment. You check-in on Monday and hope to make it to Sunday, fighting matches typically every day or every other day.
Yet, the allure of prizefighting fascinated Gigliotti, whose cousin Jeff Fraza was on season one and two of The Contender. His cousin, Derek, had won notable amateur tournaments. Fraza also passed away February 4, 2012.
“Boxing always ran in my family,” Gigliotti said. Jeff ‘The Hell Raza’ Fraza was a big role model to me. He was kind of an advocate for me when I first was coming up in the amateurs and when I lost him. It was a big loss to me and I couldn't tell that story.”
Gigliotti, 9-5 (3 KOs), after suffering three defeats made a major decision in facing the 2020 U.S. Olympian Delante “Tiger” Johnson. It was one of the first fights that he had where he had a full camp and felt that the opportunity was too good to pass up. A win would give him what he had been missing, a platform to tell his story, but then he ran into the situation many regional club fighters experience: where do you find sparring? With limited funds, and the inability to travel, he had to look around for his local resources to prepare for the bout.
“I probably had about six weeks when he signed the contract and I had already been in camp,” Gigliotti recalled. “There's really no fight like Johnson outside of Rashidi Ellis out there, and he was kind of already doing his own thing. It was to get that look of a high pedigree fighter. I didn't really have anybody in camp that could mimic that style.”
Gigliotti ended up sparring a lot of amateurs, some of whom were novices, with 10 amateur fights or less, but none similar to Johnson.
“I learned really quickly in the fight around the second round that he had good speed and he could just pick any shot,” Gigliotti said. “He’s a sniper, I knew I was in over my head.”
The fight ended with Johnson stopping Gigliotti in the fifth round. Gigliotti fought twice in 2023 with his last fight being a regional fight against Mike Ohan Jnr, a good fighter who won a unanimous decision against him. Gigliotti was going the wrong way until he found a new direction and became a bare-knuckle boxer.
“Pro boxing wasn’t allowing me to get my story out. Bare knuckle built me up, let me talk and let me promote myself,” Gigliotti said. “I think that’s a big thing for a fighter. It gives you confidence. It gives you ego and lets you create character. I’m not just a fighter. I’m a character.”
Gigliotti officially became a bare-knuckle fighter in December 2023. He has since won four fights in a row and holds a belt for BYB Extreme. He originally fought in Triad Combat in 2021, winning a fight in Texas that counts on his bare-knuckle record.
“It’s the greatest feeling in the world,” Gigliotti said. “Now I feel like I have a home, in boxing I kind of felt like I was a traveling gypsy, like I was trying to find my home, and I wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t getting the respect I deserved.
“I worked with a lot of high pedigree fighters and I still am, but at that time where I should have been getting a little bit more limelight from boxing, maybe a little bit more love, I wasn’t getting it,” Gigliotti said. “That’s something that bare-knuckle did. They gave me the platform and gave me the name. It feels good to have the respect behind me now.”
Gigliotti is now 5-0 (3 KOs) as a bare-knuckle fighter as he picked up a technical knockout of Jon Barnard on February 22 at the Stockyards Stadium, Denver, Colorado. Would Gigliotti ever return to boxing? The answer is on his own terms.
“Could I see myself coming back to boxing?” Gigliotti asked. “I don’t know. There would have to be something with getting high pay like Misfits Boxing. I’d fight people like Campbell Hatton, but I’m not going to go and try and jump up and fight Abdullah Mason or any high-ranked fighter right now. I don’t have any dreams of coming back into boxing and trying to compete for a world title or anything like that.”
