Just days away from BKFC KnuckleMania IV, Mike Perry and Thiago Alves came face to face for a tense staredown following the pre-fight press conference.
The former UFC fighters headline the first ever BKFC card in Los Angeles after the California State Athletic Commission voted to sanction bare-knuckle fighting in the state.
Perry looks to stay undefeated in bare-knuckle competition after he finished former UFC champion Eddie Alvarez in his most recent outing. As for Alves, he also holds a perfect record in BKFC at 2-0 including a middleweight title win back in 2021.
In the co-main event, Mick Terrill puts his heavyweight title up for grabs against Lorenzo Hunt, who relinquished both of his BKFC championships to earn the opportunity to win a belt in a third division.
UFC veterans Ben Rothwell and Todd Duffee also meet on the card after they were originally scheduled to meet in 2023 but the fight was cancelled just days before the event when Rothwell fell ill. Now healthy again and ready to build on his 2-0 BKFC record, Rothwell welcomes Duffee to the ring on Saturday at KnuckleMania IV.
Shaquille O’Neal at a UFC event | Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Shaquille O’Neal has Vitor Belfort to thank for his lifetime love affair with MMA.
One of the greatest basketball players ever and among the biggest media personalities on the planet, Shaq, is also a huge MMA fan. “The Big Aristotle” started training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and kickboxing back in 2000 and regularly attends UFC events. His passion for the sport even led to O’Neal becoming an unlockable character in UFC Undisputed 2010, and apparently it all started thanks to a chance encounter with Belfort.
“We’re at training camp in Hawaii, and I’m walking down the street, and a motherf***** grabs me, and he’s strong as f*ck,” O’Neal said on the Pound 4 Pound with Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo podcast. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh shit, it’s about to go down.’ And I turn around and we square up, and Vitor Belfort goes like this [raises hands] ‘No, no, no, man! I’m a fan of yours.’ I think this was UFC 1. Real talk. Motherf*cker just grabs me so I’m getting ready to square up, ‘No, no, no! I’m just a fan!’ and he gave me tickets to his fight. And he beat some dude who had on some overalls. …
“The motherf*cker grabbed me in the middle of the street. So in my mind, I’m about to f*** him up, because he’s little. But he was nice. ‘No, no, no. My friend, my friend. I fight in the UFC. We have a fight.’ ‘Motherf*cker what time?’ We didn’t have shit to do. He beat some 7-foot dude in some overalls, and I had never seen a sport like that. So I’ve been a fan ever since.”
Shaq was mistaken as Belfort did not compete at UFC 1, but the bout in question was Belfort’s first professional contest: a 12-second knockout of Jon Hess as SuperBrawl 2 in 1996. At that time the UFC had only held 11 events and the modern sport of MMA was still very much in its nascent stages, making Shaq one of the earliest fans of it. And from that fandom, O’Neal says he maintained a friendship with the man who introduced him to the sport, even telling a story about how Belfort once put his MMA skills to use for Shaq.
“He knocked somebody out for me one time,” O’Neal said. “Dude was talking crazy and Vitor just came out of nowhere, BING BING. I’m looking at the dude on the floor and I’m like, ‘Vitor, go.’ ‘No man! Duh duh duh.’ ‘Motherf*cker get out of here! Go. I got it.’ Then the cops come [shrugs]. Yeah.”
Belfort would go on to be a one-time UFC light heavyweight champion and one of the most popular fighters in MMA history. Meanwhile, O’Neal at one point wanted to try his hand in the cage, but he never ultimately did. Instead, Shaq stayed focused on his basketball career, and then his other business endeavors, and currently serves as Reebok’s President of Basketball.
Islam Makhachev | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Tatsuro Taira puts his unbeaten record on the line against a fellow flyweight prospect.
Taira’s management announced Thursday that he is set to face Joshua Van (10-1) at UFC 302 on June 1 in Newark, N.J. The two fighters share the same representation.
This marks an opponent change for Van, who was originally scheduled to fight Sumudaerji. The Chinese standout withdrew from the contest for undisclosed reasons.
Taira also sees a change in his schedule after losing opponent Tim Elliott to an undisclosed injury. He was expected to fight Elliott at a UFC Fight Night event on May 18.
The new matchup pits two of the 125-pound division’s brightest prospects against one another. Taira is yet to lose in 15 pro bouts, including a perfect 5-0 mark in the UFC. In his most recent outing, the 24-year-old scored a second-round TKO victory over Carlos Hernandez.
Van, 22, is 3-0 to start his UFC career. He defeated Felipe Bunes by second-round TKO this past January to follow up on decision wins over Kevin Borjas and Zhalgas Zhumagulov.
UFC 302 is headlined by a title fight between lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and Dustin Poirier. Middleweight contenders Sean Strickland and Paulo Costa square off in the co-main event.
See the updated UFC 302 lineup below (bout order still to be finalized):
Michael Bisping says he would come out of retirement to cap off his trilogy with Luke Rockhold.
Rockhold recently knocked out Joe Schilling in the third round at Karate Combat 45, which Bisping was doing a livestream event for on his YouTube channel. A few days later, Bisping addressed some fans asking him about doing a third fight with Rockhold to figure out who the better man is, once and for all.
“Luke Rockhold, I was doing a live to [his fight], and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to do the trilogy,’” Bisping said on Believe You Me. “I’ll do Karate Combat against Luke Rockhold. I’ll do it.
“I’ll do it. I will have a trilogy with Luke Rockhold in Karate Combat. I would love to.”
In their first meeting, Rockhold stopped Bisping with a guillotine choke in just under six minutes at UFC Fight Night 55 in November 2014. They would run it back less than two years later when Rockhold defended the UFC middleweight title against Bisping — who stepped in on short notice as an injury replacement for Chris Weidman — in the main event of UFC 199.
After a fight week full of trash talk, Bisping delivered the performance of a lifetime, shocking Rockhold, and the MMA community as a massive underdog and captured the title via first-round TKO.
The personal rivalry between Bisping and Rockhold has certainly changed over the years, but the competitive rivalry still seems to be there for Bisping. As his co-host Anthony Smith continued to push for the idea of the fight coming to fruition, the now UFC color commentator doubled down on making it happen.
“This has gotten momentum a bit too quickly, let me just see my hip doctor first,” Bisping said. “I’m joking, [but] I’d do it. 100 percent, I would. … “Yeah, well done to Luke [against Schilling]. Fair play, man, fair play.”
Mike Perry returns to bare-knuckle fist-fight another man on Saturday when he takes on fellow UFC veteran and former bare-knuckle boxing champion Thiago Alves inside Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater in the main event of BKFC KnuckleMania 4.
Ahead of what’s sure to be a gruesome affair, MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti, Damon Martin, and Mike Heck sidle up to the roundtable to preview the return of the bare-knuckle king.
1. Is BKFC Mike Perry one of the 10 biggest draws in combat sports?
Al-Shatti: Can you imagine hearing this question in 2021 after the platinum one dropped out of the UFC having lost seven of his last 10 and four of his last five? Good lord. It would’ve sounded ludicrous. Perry barely even registered as a novelty anymore in these days. He was the dude lost in the MMA wilderness, the loose cannon who couldn’t find an actual camp or team to call home, who showed up to fights on losing streaks with his girlfriend as the only person in his corner, and who made headlines more for swinging at fools in restaurants rather than any results of consequence in the cage. If I asked you to forecast Perry’s next three years the day after his UFC departure, you would’ve been more likely to suggest jail-time rather than six-figure purses and combat sports superstardom.
But therein lies the magic of the fight game. It’s a fickle mistress. Fifteen years ago Perry may have been left adrift to become MMA’s next Melvin Guillard. But fate and fortune thrust him into exactly the right place at exactly the right time, and Perry capitalized at every turn to become the face of an entire damn sport. It’s a beautiful thing.
Now, is Perry a top-10 draw in combat sports as a whole? Probably not. There are a whole lot of boxers and MMA athletes who still reign supreme in that regard. But is he somewhere within the top 25? I wouldn’t doubt it. Traffic and search interest on this very website shoot through the roof every time he steps into the BKFC ring. Call it a perfect marriage, call it morbid fascination, call it whatever you want — all I know is that when “Platinum” Mike Perry chucks those bare fists into another human being’s face, people trip over themselves to pay attention. That’s more than can be said for 99.9 percent of athletes in this game.
Phil Lambert/BKFC
Martin: Thanks to some memorable performances in the UFC, and then becoming must-see TV in BKFC, Mike Perry has absolutely cemented himself as one of the top 10 draws in the sport.
Of course, BKFC doesn’t release pay-per-view numbers (although those might start coming more often now that the promotion’s owners at Triller are part of publicly traded company), but every other metric available says when Perry fights, people care. BKFC might be the only promotion outside of the UFC and major boxing events to sell more than 5,000 tickets to any single event, and Perry drives a ton of that interest whenever he competes.
Going to a surprising sixth and final round to settle things with Michael Page. Taking on former UFC champion Luke Rockhold and then making him say “no mas” in the second round after watching his teeth go flying into the crowd. Facing off with Conor McGregor because why the hell not? Throwing down in a slugfest with Eddie Alvarez and blowing his head up like a balloon.
Perry creates viral moments every time he competes, and in this ADHD, TikTok world we live in, he’s exactly what the combat sports audience consumes like popcorn. The “King of Violence” gets eyeballs, clicks, and sells tickets. That’s a promoter’s dream.
Heck: Draw is an interesting way to frame it, because it’s impossible to know the answer. If I had to take an educated guess, I’d say no, although he’s knocking on the door. But he’s hit a freaking grand slam since making the shift.
When something fits so perfectly, it creates magic. That’s what we’ve gotten with Mike Perry and BKFC. It’s absolutely perfect, and you can see it on Perry’s face. He’s legitimately happy where he is. When he was fighting for the UFC, he certainly drew attention to his fights — for good and for bad — but everyone could see Perry wasn’t truly happy. Now that he’s being treated as a face and superstar, he’s become the promotion’s most valuable player.
Perry certainly brings over a different and bigger audience when he fights, no doubt about it. He brings violence, and a likable — dare I say, charming — personality to a sport where people beat the bag out of each other without gloves, not to mention he’s facing recognizable names on the regular. And trust me, from a numbers standpoint, there will be five to 10 times more interest on our site for KnuckleMania than UFC Vegas 91, and that might be generous.
What Perry has done with BKFC has put him in the conversation, and that’s absolutely incredible. Plus, he’s making bags of money to boot, so Perry is winning big. But to say he’s one of the 10 biggest draws in ALL of combat sports right now? I just don’t think the math lines up. Now, if we can get Perry in there with Jake Paul, or in a big cross-promotional fight so a new and large audience can meet him for the first time, I think that could change the conversation entirely.
2. What’s next for Perry after this weekend if he beats Thiago Alves?
Heck: Since I get the top spot for this one, I’m going to give Perry what he wants — and quite frankly, what we all want: Darren Till.
I honestly don’t understand how this fight hasn’t happened yet. These guys have been on a collision course since they were both in the UFC, and even with Till moving up to middleweight, it was about as a big of a no-brainer the promotion could’ve made.
Now that Till is no longer on the UFC roster, and with how aggressive Dave Feldman is in making fights that the fans want, I’d be pretty surprised if BKFC didn’t make Till an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Zuffa LLC
Martin: Mr. Heck has the correct answer here and I just have to echo that by saying: What exactly are you doing, Mr. Till? Maybe a 1-5 run to end his UFC career has him a little gun shy about throwing down in a bare-knuckle fight with Perry?
To be completely fair, that is a dangerous proposition, especially if you’re trying to regain your footing and confidence in your first fight back in nearly two years.
If Till isn’t available, why not drain the last of the swamp out of the interest that may still surround Dillon Danis? Sure, he’s not a striker and he threw about four punches in a boxing match with Logan Paul, but is there any chance that Perry won’t come after him like a lion chasing down a gazelle while throwing heat-seeking missiles?
It’s a complete mismatch on paper, but Danis — for better or worse — knows how to sell a fight, and Perry going scorched earth on his face would draw a crowd.
Al-Shatti: I hate to make it 3-for-3, but what on earth are you thinking if you’re Darren Till and that alleged $ 2 million offer from BKFC was actually real? Like, sure, I’m not trying to bare-knuckle box Mike Perry either. The man has a frightening tendency to break people’s faces in a very literal way. He’s like Jorge Masvidal but if Jorge Masvidal actually did the thing he always talks about doing. But hand me a check for seven figures? Brother, I may start changing my tune real quick. Obviously I don’t know every opportunity availing itself to Till in this combat wilderness, but I also can’t imagine many folks are lining up to pay such a weighty price tag for someone who’s lost five of six since mid-2018. Till has to know that with every loss he takes from here, this conversation only shifts in the wrong way.
But I digress. Since it seems like Till clearly isn’t interested, allow me to revisit the idea I pitched this past December. The perfect Perry opponent is anyone who sits at the intersection of name brand, availability, violence potential, and enough lunatic tendencies to actually be crazy enough to do this. Who fits that bill to a tee? Oh yes — it’s Paul Daley. “Semtex” may be 41 years old, but he was born for bare-knuckle boxing, and he sent poor Wendell Giacomo to the land of wind and ghosts as recently as 2022. Daley also very clearly left the door open for something different in combat sports when hung up his MMA gloves.
As far as Plan Bs go, you could do a lot worse than London’s finest.
3. What is this card missing?
Martin: Because bare-knuckle fighting is such a fast-paced sport with five-round fights that only last two minutes per round, sometimes these matchups go quicker than expected, which is why you end up with a nine-fight main card like what’s happening on Saturday.
The most notable omission really comes down to at least one more fight with real name value, but even that’s not totally necessary with Perry headlining.
It would be nice if BKFC KnuckleMania IV, which is promoted as the once-a-year Super Bowl level event for the promotion, had a bit more star power at the top. A marquee fight with Paige VanZant returning would have been a welcome addition, but she’s about to headline a Misfits boxing card instead. Maybe BKFC knows Perry doesn’t need much of a supporting cast these days, and VanZant surely earns a hefty paycheck, so it might come down to a financial decision to leave her off the card.
But truthfully, Perry is to BKFC what Conor McGregor is to the UFC — that’s the only fight that ever really matters, so why not just let them shine and save everybody else to sell another card down the road?
Photos by Phil Lambert
Al-Shatti: Look, if we’re being honest with ourselves, the answer is clear. It’s missing one of two things. First is the kind of bombastic dance partner we’ve come to expect from a Mike Perry BKFC event. Thiago Alves is one hell of a matchup — a true-blue violence connoisseur who very much lives that life and could absolutely win on Saturday — but he isn’t the same type of carnival barker who’ll play the promotional game and push an event to that next level in the same way as a Michael Page, Luke Rockhold, or even an Eddie Alvarez. Alves prefers to get his work done inside the cage, and that’s great, but his more muted approach doesn’t tickle the reptilian side of our brains in the same way as Perry’s past foes.
As for the second missing component — I mean, this is an event called KnuckleMania. It inherently leans into the absurd. Where’s the weirdness? Where’s the oddity? Where’s that special circus sideshow no one saw coming that brings that “wait…what??” factor to the package? This is a much more minor quibble, no doubt, but a little dash of Fight Circus for such a Superbowl-style event could’ve gone a long way toward spicing things up.
Still, though, Ben Rothwell vs. Todd Duffee is on this card, so I’m not complaining.
Heck: I talked about this during the 2024 MMA Fighting Draft — which I won, by the way — but while BKFC is doing a ton of things right, there is a glaring hole in their promotional lens when it comes to building female stars. Britain Hart could be a bigger star, Taylor Starling as well, not to mention Christine Ferea being the face of women’s bare-knuckle boxing, but neither are competing on this card.
The biggest reason I bring this up? If there was an opportunity to put a bare-knuckle fight together between Ferea and Cris Cyborg, it would generate more buzz than any current and realistic option Cyborg has on the table, especially now that Kayla Harrison is on the UFC roster. Would Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco be intriguing? Yes. But would it draw more interest than Cyborg going to BKFC to face Ferea? No, and I don’t think it’s close.
Both Ferea and Cyborg have expressed interest in fighting each other, and I’m sure PFL could use the extra exposure by putting one of its big names in an incredibly intriguing matchup, plus with Perry at the top of the bill, and adding another mainstream combat name to the mix, there will be more eyeballs on a PFL fighter at KnuckleMania than on most of PFL’s fight cards in 2024. That might be harsh, but it’s likely not wrong.
Cedric Doumbe didn’t have to wait long to find a new dance partner.
The French superstar now faces Jaleel Willis at Bellator Paris on May 17 at Accor Arena in Paris. Doumbé was initially scheduled to face Derek Anderson, but the longtime Bellator veteran was forced to withdraw Tuesday after suffering a nasty foot injury.
Willis makes his eighth Bellator appearance, and first under the PFL umbrella. The 32-year-old looks to bounce back from a first-round TKO loss to Ramazan Kuramagomedov at Bellator 297 this past June, and enters the bout having dropped three of his past four bouts.
Doumbé comes off his first pro MMA loss in his most recent outing to Baysangur Chamsoudinov at PFL Europe 1 in March, which ended due to a controversial referee stoppage. The former GLORY Kickboxing champion is one of the PFL’s rising stars, and now steps into the Bellator cage for the first time in his career.
Bellator Paris is headlined by a bantamweight title fight between Patchy Mix and Magomed Magomedov.
Caio Borralho | Photo by Pedro Vilela/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
When Paulo Costa lost a unanimous decision to Robert Whittaker in the co-main event of UFC 298, fellow middleweight Caio Borralho couldn’t help but be baffled at how “Borrachinha” doesn’t seem to correct mistakes he’s made in multiple losses.
Borralho told MMA Fighting’s Trocação Franca podcast that he likes Costa as an entertaining athlete, but advised him to go back to the drawing board to fix his game.
“What worries me the most is that [Costa] ate the same calf kicks [Israel] Adesanya landed,” Borralho said. “The same kicks. Again. I was like, ‘How’s that? Can’t you see this?’ When you stand on your lead leg to throw the right hands he throws, they will kick your calf. That’s basic these days.
“I thought it was lack of [adjustments]. ’Borrachinha’ is a very dangerous guy, very athletic, easily throws super fast head kicks. You see he’s big, gigantic, and kicks way high on the head and can end the fight against anyone in the world, but I really thought he lacked [adjustments].”
Borralho said he trained with Costa for a 10-day period in the past but questioned his countryman’s ability of perform on fight night the same way Costa does in the gym. Costa started his professional MMA career with 13 straight victories and 11 knockouts, but hasn’t been able to finish anyone since stopping Uriah Hall in July 2018. None of the six men he beat under the UFC banner are still under contract with the promotion.
“‘Borrachinha’ is a machine,” Borralho said. “I just thought that when it’s time to fight, he can’t put that to use. I don’t know if it’s over-training, I don’t know, but I’m sure he can’t perform in fights the way he does in training.”
All three judges scored the bout in favor of Whittaker, and Borralho poked fun of Costa on social media for suggesting that he could have won a decision, writing that the “fun part was watching Paulo thinking that his spinning heel kick in the first round won all the rounds for him.”
“He knows he didn’t do enough to win the fight,” Borralho said. “If you get all three rounds and see how many straight rights he landed, the hand he used to knock out all those guys during his career, I think he only threw four of those the entire fight. He didn’t act to win the fight.
“Whittaker was scoring, scoring, scoring, touching and touching, using his experience, because it seems that Whittaker is out of rhythm [in his career]. Whittaker is fading, he’s not growing as he used to. I feel that Whittaker is fading, but he won it with his experience, doing things in the third round to score and clearly win the fight, in my opinion.”
Costa will return to action on June 1, when he meets former 185-pound champion Sean Strickland at UFC 302. Borralho draws Paul Craig next at UFC 301, which goes down May 4 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The rich got richer when it came to executive compensation once UFC and WWE merged to become TKO Group Holdings this past September.
In a new financial disclosure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ahead of an annual stockholders meeting in June, compensation packages for the top TKO executives were revealed for the fiscal year in 2023, including CEO Ari Emanuel earning nearly $ 65 million.
The financial package included $ 911,538 in salary, which was prorated based on the merger date — Sept. 12 2023 — to the end of the fiscal year, along with a $ 24 million bonus and $ 40,000,094 in stock awards.
As part of his overall bonus, Emanuel took home a whopping $ 20 million transaction bonus from UFC alone that “was not tied to achievement of any specified performance measure and, as such, is not included herein.”
Mark Shapiro, the TKO president and chief operating officer, took home a package valued at more than $ 16 million, which included a $ 9 million bonus and more than $ 6 million in stock awards.
Andrew Schleimer, the chief financial officer, earned more than $ 8.7 million, with a $ 5 million bonus and more than $ 3.1 million in stock awards.
WWE president and TKO board member Nick Khan also took home more than $ 32 million in total compensation, which included a $ 15 million bonus and more than $ 12 million in stock awards.
The deal to merge UFC and WWE together under the new label at TKO was valued at more than $ 21 billion. In 2023, UFC produced record revenue of $ 1.3 billion driven by media rights and increases in sponsorships and live events, with 20 sold-out shows and seven of those among the 20 highest grossing UFC events of all-time.
Because TKO remains a publicly traded company, executive compensation packages like these are made available for stockholders and through required SEC filings. The primary TKO owner is Endeavor — the talent agency that also operates other major businesses like On Location and Professional Bull Riders — which owns a 51 percent stake in the company.
Endeavor was recently taken private again after Silver Lake purchased the rest of the remaining stock available for the company in a deal valued at $ 13 billion. While Endeavor no longer has to provide financial disclosures as a private company, TKO is still required as a publicly traded entity.
TKO appears poised for another huge year in 2024 after WWE inked a pair of massive broadcast deals, including a five-year, $ 10 billion contract to move its flagship Monday Night Raw program to Netflix starting in 2025. UFC also begins negotiations soon on a new TV rights deal, with the current contract with ESPN expiring after 2025.
Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez is set to go to court with his attempted murder trial on Sept. 9. in Santa Clara County, Calif.
The trial date was set on Wednesday by Judge Elizabeth Peterson, with Velasquez appearing in court alongside his attorney Renee Hessling.
At the latest hearing, Hessling requested another continuance, but prosecutor Aaron French, who represented the District Attorney’s office, argued against another delay, complaining that the trial setting had already been pushed back several times. A continuance for the trial setting was granted back in February due to subpoena requests that the defense was still waiting to receive, including records from the UFC.
Hessling stated on Wednesday that the subpoena evidence acquired was still incomplete and she needed more time before a trial date was set.
In the end, Peterson sided with the prosecution to set a trial date for September. Velasquez faces a litany of charges in connection with his arrest back in March 2022.
Velasquez, 41, was arrested after allegedly going on a high-speed chase pursuing a car containing Harry Goularte, a man accused of sexually abusing his son at a daycare owned by Goularte’s mother. Velasquez allegedly fired several rounds from a handgun into the vehicle, with Goularte’s stepfather, Paul Bender, being hit by a bullet but sustaining non-life threatening injuries as a result.
Goularte, who was released on bail against the recommendation from the prosecution prior to the alleged car chase, faces separate charges, including one count of lewd acts with a child, but his own trial date still hasn’t been set.
The next major date in the case for Velasquez comes on June 26 for a trial readiness hearing, with motions required to be filed by Aug. 12 and completed by Aug. 26. Witness lists for the prosecution and defense must be filed no later than Sept. 4, with the trial slated to start on Sept. 9.
During the previous hearing in February, French stated that he objected to further delays in setting a trial date but conversations were ongoing between the prosecution and the defense over a potential resolution that could include a plea deal. At this point, no plea deal was reached, so now a trial date has been set for September.
Velasquez faces a multitude of charges including attempted murder, which carries a minimum 20-year sentence or up to life in prison if convicted.
Phil Lambert/BKFC 
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Zuffa LLC 
Photos by Phil Lambert 
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