BKFC president teases next major card targeted for September: ‘We won’t be that one-hit wonder’
On the heels of a successful BKFC 41 card in Denver, the combat sports’ leading bare-knuckle promotion is now targeting September for its next major card.
That’s according to BKFC president David Feldman, who saw the organization that first launched in 2018 ascend to new heights on the back of a card headlined by Mike Perry finishing ex-UFC champion Luke Rockhold, as well as a back-and-forth brawl between Eddie Alvarez and Chad Mendes. UFC superstar Conor McGregor also attended the event and even climbed into the ring with a BKFC title over his shoulder for a faceoff with Perry.
The stars certainly aligned for BKFC that night, but Feldman says the promotion has to build on the momentum, which is why he’s now starting to put together another marquee event for September.
“We’re putting together a superfight here in September, hopefully that’s going to be even bigger than the one we just did in Denver,” Feldman told MMA Fighting. “We want to keep up the momentum. I don’t want to be the promotion where it’s like, ‘There’s only been one promotion and I think it’s BKFC that ever did anything like this before, but are they going to continue or are they going to be that one-hit wonder?’ We won’t be that one-hit wonder.
“We’re throwing everything we have at this thing and we think we can have a hell of a run for BKFC in the next three to five years.”
Feldman previously teased that BKFC has been in talks on a potential television deal that would bring the promotion to a much wider audience than just broadcasting major events on pay-per-view.
While massive events like BKFC 41 will only take place a couple of times per year, the promotion still puts on cards several times per month, including the recent BKFC 43 card this past Friday, which would only sweeten the pot for a broadcast rights deal.
As far as the card in September goes, Feldman says he’s working on securing a few new names to mix in with the current roster at BKFC, which will help build the event into something even bigger, with plans to possibly even tackle a new state at the same time.
“If everything goes good this week, it will be a new state that will be a needle-mover for us,” Feldman said. “We had two superfights, if you will, on BKFC 41. This one will have four [superfights]. It will be stacked from top to bottom. We’re doing a lot of really good things with this one. I think it’s going to be our most-watched event ever.
“I can’t drop names because we’ve been riding so many different directions since BKFC 41 that we haven’t had the chance to lock it all down, but just the talks that we’ve been having about it, it will be the biggest event we’ve ever done by far, way bigger than Denver and I think that’s one that really puts us on the map.”
Feldman recognizes that BKFC 41 was potentially a watershed moment for the promotion, so he really wants to deliver another card that will have the whole combat sports world buzzing again.
“I say it with a lot of different events, this one turns the corner or this one turns the corner — [BKFC 41] certainly turned the corner for us in a very, very positive way,” Feldman said. “But we’ve got to keep the momentum going.
“We can’t slow down, we can’t stop, and because of that, I think this huge event we’re going to have in September, it’s going to mean the world to BKFC.”