BKFC boss David Feldman name-dropped some of the biggest names in combat sports.
Over the last few months, the potential ceiling for Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship appears to have been raised. For several years now, BKFC has established itself as a popular and sustainable product that could quite easily exist on the margins, selling out modestly-sized venues with a rotating cast of brave souls. However, once Conor McGregor became part-owner of the company, bigger things started to happen. KnuckleMania brought the company to California for the first time, it signed an output deal with DAZN, and suddenly both the ceiling and the floor had been raised significantly.
Already positioned alongside some of the biggest combat sports events in the world on DAZN, and with an influx of cash thanks to the buy-in of McGregor, BKFC is now floating even grander ideas, such as a $25 million dollar tournament open to participants from anywhere.
“It’s going to be a $25 million prize and we’re going to be on the search for someone really special,” BKFC president David Feldman told MMA Today. “Anybody from any organization, from any combat sport, anybody is welcome to do this. Not much more I can say about it right now, it’s going to be, when I announce it I think people are going to be, like, ‘Holy shit, this is unbelievable.’”
More specifically, Feldman says he’s targeting two of the biggest names in the sport of boxing, former heavyweight champions Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
“The best people would be Conor, Tyson Fury, and Anthony Joshua,” Feldman told World Boxing News this week. “Anthony Joshua did an interview and said my first favorite sport is boxing, and my second favorite is bare-knuckle fighting. He said it. To the public. There’s guys like that out there, and I don’t think it’s far-fetched to see some of the best boxers in history, or best MMA fighters in history, take the gloves off and fight for BKFC. I don’t think that’s far-fetched.”
Photo Courtesy of BKFC.
Obviously, this is in no way an indication that the company has discussed anything with either fighter, and it should be noted that both Joshua and Fury have made more than the gaudy sum Feldman is discussing for a multi-stage bare knuckle tournament in a single gloved fight—sometimes by many magnitudes in the case of Fury’ and Joshua’s jackpot outings in Saudi Arabia.
Feldman is right that Joshua revealed to James Corden in a recent interview that his second favorite sport is bare knuckle boxing. In the case of Fury, he comes from a long line of Irish travellers who were bare knuckle boxers, his father included, and has always expressed adoration for the sport, as well as occasionally teasing that he would one day do it himself.
Of the two, one would have to believe that the enigmatic Fury would be more likely to entertain an idea like this. It’s frankly not far-fetched to imagine a reality in which Fury takes part in a one-off bare knuckle fight to honor his heritage, no doubt creating an immense amount of buzz for a spectacle of an event. It wouldn’t even crack the top-ten list of the wackiest things Fury has done, if we’re being honest.
Realistically though, Feldman dropping the names of Joshua and Fury is clever promotion that has already served its intended purpose by landing the company mainstream coverage in the UK Mirror and elsewhere discussing the pie-in-the-sky idea.
However, if the company is starting to come into sums of money that allow it to put on a $25 million tournament, let’s say, they will certainly find themselves courting some big name boxers. It might not be Joshua and Fury, but star fighters will be compelled. As Gabe Rosado revealed to Bare Knuckle Nation two weeks ago, he would entertain a bare knuckle bout for $1 million, a sum that isn’t that far off from Mike Perry’s payday at the most recent KnuckleMania.
With the increased normalization of bare knuckle fighting and additional exposure, taking a fight in BKFC is being viewed less and less like a freak show idea. Recent world champion Regis Prograis floated the idea of taking bare knuckle fights both before and after his loss to Jack Catterall, and Guillermo Rigondeaux, perhaps the most “classical” boxer one could think of, is still maybe on his way into the bare knuckle game at some point.
Feldman’s goals for BKFC have always been audacious, and considering how far his company has come, one can’t blame him for believing—or wanting people to believe—in the possibility of superstars taking the mitts off.
Top Photo Courtesy of BKFC.
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