Bare-Knuckle Fighting Championship is confident they can sign two of the biggest free agents in MMA right now.
The bare-knuckle promotion has gone after high-profile free agents previously and now BKFC President Dave Feldman believes his organization could ultimately offer somebody like Diaz the kind of money and opportunity that he wants after leaving the UFC.
While Diaz has been frequently linked to a possible boxing match against Jake Paul, Feldman feels that BKFC could give him an even better option with a higher back end financially.
“The money’s on the table for him,” Feldman said about Diaz. “It’s just a matter now of does he want to fight bare knuckle? That’s all it really is. I’m confident he can make more money with us than he can anywhere else, even fighting Jake Paul. Because if you know what he’s been paying those guys, they’ve been making decent money, don’t get me wrong. The pay-per-views have been doing decent and he can get some upside but I think if he fought a guy like Mike Perry with bare knuckles, I think that’s probably his most popular option out there that he’s going to get the most eyeballs on that.
“He could get more on Jake Paul but I think people are getting tired of — not Jake Paul but Jake Paul fighting someone he’s supposed to beat. Not that he was supposed to beat Anderson Silva. I’ll tell you he looked very good in that fight and ended up dropping Anderson Silva, which really, really impressed me, but we’re talking about Nate now. Nate is someone I’d love to get. It’s someone that I think if he could crossover to this he would bring a lot of MMA fans into this organization and I think it would be great acquisition.”
According to Feldman, he’s expected to talk to Diaz’s management team over the next few days to discuss options and make a formal offer to bring him to BKFC.
Diaz is now cleared to sign with any promotion after the UFC ended its matching period with the one-time title challenger, which officially ended their relationship that dated back to 2007.
In addition to Diaz, Feldman revealed that BKFC has already engaged in talks with Alvarez, who is also currently available to sign after his previously deal with ONE Championship was terminated.
Alvarez has long been considered one of the top lightweights in the sport after previously holding titles in both the UFC and Bellator.
“We’re talking to [Eddie Alvarez],” Feldman said. “He has a couple other options on the table. It’s a hard choice for him. He’s a guy who’s a legend in MMA and going over to bare knuckle, like a lot of these guys, he’s not really at the end of his career — I’m not going to say he’s in the prime of his career but he’s not at the end where he has no other options.
“He has options with all the other MMA organizations in the world but it is something that we’re talking about and we hope to have an answer early next week. We did our job to try to get him over to BKFC and if that works, that’s great. I like him. He’s a fellow Philly guy so that would be amazing to have someone like that on our roster but we’ll know within the next week.”
Feldman said that whether it’s Diaz, Alvarez or another free agent that comes available, BKFC will continue to be a player pursuing well-known, skilled fighters to add to the promotion’s roster.
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