Two big names of the combat sports world are free agents, and BKFC is trying to sign both of them.
The Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship is now trying to go after former UFC star Nate Diaz and former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez. BKFC President Dave Feldman says that he has good offers for the both of them.
“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,” Feldman told MMA Fighting.
“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.”
Diaz parted ways with the UFC late last month after months of asking the promotion to give him his final fight.
The welterweight capped off his career with the UFC by choking out Tony Ferguson at UFC 279. He was originally scheduled to face Khamzat Chimaev, but the latter missed weight by seven pounds.
Feldman said that he’s supposed to talk with Diaz’s management team over the next few days.
Before Diaz was released from the UFC, he applied for a promoter’s license for Real Fight, Inc. He said he was still interested in competing in combat sports.
As for Alvarez, his most recent deal with ONE Championship was terminated.
“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.
Alvarez previously held lightweight titles in the UFC and in Bellator twice.
“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.”