No clue what Alvarez plans to do but if I had to guess I would say he signs with Coker and gets a spot in the 2023 LW GP. He could even get a crack at Usman Nurmagomedov and the LW title in the first round of the GP. Crazier fights have been made in MMA.
Nate Diaz and Eddie Alvarez are two of the biggest names in free agency across all of combat sports and BKFC is making a concerted effort to potentially sign both of them.
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 when speaking to MMA Fighting. “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.
“We’re definitely scheduled to talk next week and we’ll see if we can lock that down,” Feldman said. “It’s a goal of mine and sometimes when I put goals in front of me, I don’t let anything stop me from getting there so I hope that’s one of them as well.”
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.
“It’s amazing where it is,” Feldman said. “I’m talking to these free agents and here’s my pitch — if you go to these other MMA organizations, I’m not taking anything away from them, I actually have a good relationship with all of these guys now. But if you go to one of the other major MMA organizations coming from the UFC, you’re going to just another MMA organization.
“Not saying it’s not exciting but it’s not like wow they’re trying something different. It’s now he’s fighting in this organization and who’s he going to fight in these organizations, since there’s not really a lot of big names. But if he comes over to bare knuckle, everybody is going to say ‘wow he’s fighting bare knuckle and he’s fighting him bare knuckle?’ Holy s*** we can’t wait to watch that! That’s the kind of reaction we get from these guys when they fight bare knuckle because it’s different. It’s a whole different animal and now people are taking it seriously. People know we are sticking around.”
