There is the power of love, the power of persuasion and, lesser known but compelling and confounding, the power of Sam Shewmaker.
It’s unleashed by the fists of the 33-year-old Shewmaker, who sports a bushy red beard, describes himself as a hillbilly and country boy and has emerged as a curiosity and potential star in the world of bare-knuckle boxing.
He stands 6-3, weighs 210 less-than-lean pounds and, in Cheyenne, Wyo., June 2, he looked terribly overmatched before his first professional bare-knuckle fight. His opponent was the chiseled Eric Prindle, who stood 6-4 and weighed almost 280 pounds.
A single punch was thrown.
It was an overhand right from Shewmaker. Prindle dropped like the stock market on Black Monday.
Eighteen seconds into the fight, Shewmaker had scored a stunning knockout. He recently said Prindle, a veteran fighter and mixed martial arts specialist, told him Shewmaker’s knockout punch was the hardest punch he’d ever taken.
Reached by USA TODAY Sports, Prindle said he can’t confirm or dispute what he told Shewmaker about the punch.
“He obviously hit me hard as heck, because I don’t remember saying that,’’ Prindle said.
Shewmaker will be back in the ring Saturday in Biloxi, Miss., where he will fight Arnold Adams in the finals of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship heavyweight tournament on a card that will available on pay-per-view. For now, a mystery remains unsolved.
How does Shewmaker, a relatively unimposing heavyweight who said he’d like to improve his physique, generate such astounding power?
It might stem in part from growing up in Missouri with a family that had a stone masonry business, according to Shewmaker. By the age of 13, Shewmaker said, he was hauling material up and down hills, digging ditches with a pick and shovel and unloading truckloads of sand and rock by hand.
“It’s hard labor intensified,’’ Shewmaker told USA TODAY Sports.
But his uncle and trainer, Damon Shewmaker, emphasized the role of biomechanics.
“Your power comes from the rotation of your body and weight transfer,’’ he said. “It’s not the big muscles. You might be able to bench press 500 pounds and not be able to break an egg with your fist. The power comes from the rotation, the violent rotation, of your body.’’
In synchronizing the body movements that enhance punching power, Damon Shewmaker said, Sam Shewmaker is a natural.
“We work on it all the time, but you’re born with that natural ability,’’ he said. “You got it in you. You know how to do it.
“When you throw that right hand, it’s like throwing a baseball. You ever see a baseball pitcher that’s built like Prindle? No, you don’t. They’re stiff, and they can’t move, they can’t rotate.”
Shewmaker threw the equivalent of a 100 mph fastball several months before his pro debut when he flew to Philadelphia for the bare knuckle boxing open tryouts. The fighters were asked to hit a punch meter, a device designed to measure punching power.
No one registered a score of higher than 1,300, except for Shewmaker, that is. Still an amateur boxer at the time, he threw four right hands and one left hand and registered a top score of 1,659.
“You could feel the electricity in the room,’’ Shewmaker said. “That event really kind of opened my eyes. Man, I knew I had a punch. I had obviously knocked people out before, with gloves and without gloves, but I guess never to that extent.’’
On Aug. 25, in the semifinals of the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship heavyweight tournament, Maurice Jackson, who is 6-9, tied up Shewmaker, who never connected with a big punch but won a split-decision that earned him a shot against Adams in the finals.
Shewmaker said he knows what people who buy the pay-per-view broadcast or those who buy tickets to watch at the fights at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum hope to see when he steps into the ring.
“They love to see that raw power and they love to see the knockouts,’’ Shewmaker said. “I’d love to give the fans what they want.’’
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