There are going to be a lot of fighters volunteering to join BKFC’s massive tournament launching in 2025 for more reasons than just the $25 million in prize money attached.
Just before the end of 2024, BKFC president David Feldman announced plans for a tournament, but at the time he didn’t have many details to offer as the bare-knuckle promotion was still in the planning stages. While all the official rules, which includes how fighters can participate in the tournament, are still to be decided, Feldman offered some clarification on who is will be eligible once the fights begin in 2025.
“What it’s going to be is one, big, larger extended weight class,” Feldman told MMA Fighting. “It could be a higher weight, it could be a lighter weight, we’re going through that now. But it’s going to be a bigger gap on a weight class.
“You’re going to see guys from five or six weight divisions in this tournament. You are going to see that. You’re going to see guys from five different continents trying out for this thing. How many different countries? I don’t know, 30, 40, 50 different countries.”
Feldman says a final decision hasn’t been made yet on the exact weights, but the $25 million tournament won’t be exclusive to just one division. Instead, he’s opting for a more “openweight” type tournament so more fighters can be included. Don’t expect to see a 125-pounder taking on a heavyweight when the action begins later this year, though.
“Let’s just say for instance if we did the higher weight class, it would be 175 [pounds] to 275 [pounds],” Feldman said while clarifying the actual weights haven’t been decided yet. “The lower weight class maybe it would be 135 to 165, something [like that]. I’m just putting it out there. We don’t have it defined yet but it’s going to be a wide disparity and I think people are going to want to see this thing.
“Who’s not going to want to see let’s say a Mike Perry fight a Ben Rothwell. Let’s just say, that would be intriguing as hell. This guy busts everybody up in bare-knuckle, let’s see what that looks like. I think it’s going to get people really, really intrigued.”
As far as the talent available for this tournament, Feldman promised that BKFC would scour the globe to find the biggest names but also the best prospects as well who could vye for the $25 million in prize money.
While he admitted there are probably a few fighters who will bypass the selection process just based on overall value to the tournament, Feldman expects to discover a lot of new talent while putting together the field of participants.
“Everybody has to qualify for this tournament,” Feldman said. “There’s going to be a couple of guys that we’re probably going to say, ‘Hey, I want to lure you in here, you get a bye into the final eight’ because I want to get big names in there, too. But I also want to find diamonds in the rough because what I think this tournament’s going to do for combat sports, I really think it’s going to wake it up a little bit. I think it’s going to change the game a little bit. I think it’s really going to help us develop some new stars.
“Because we’re going to find people from all over the world who can really fight and we didn’t know that they could really fight. Now we’re going to know and we can develop them into BKFC stars at the same time putting on the most epic, the most fighters ever aligned in a tournament and the biggest prize pool ever in a fight tournament in the history of combat sports.”
Feldman also revealed that the tournament is expected to play out over several months so this won’t necessarily become a rapid-fire scenario where the events are all stacked on top of each other.
Add to that, the BKFC president says if all goes well with this inaugural $25 million tournament then the bare-knuckle promotion could end up doing more of these in the future — and perhaps the prize money could get even bigger.
“We’re going to do that in 2025 so it’s going to start mid-2025 — probably April, we’re looking at April — I’ll give you another little nugget. It’s nine to 10 months,” Feldman said. “So it’s going to [start] in 2025 and it’s going to end in 2026.
“If it’s successful the way I think it’s going to be, then we’re going to go 2026 into 2027, the same thing. Who knows, if the broadcasters get involved the right way, the sponsors are happy, who knows if two or three years from now it doesn’t become a $100 million tournament.”
Putting up $25 million for a single tournament might seem like a risky investment but Feldman says his philosophy with BKFC has been the same ever since he first launched the promotion in 2018.
“I’m looking to do the biggest and best things,” Feldman said. “I’m looking to test myself and the team. The only way to do that is going out there and doing the biggest and the best things that we can possibly do. If we fall, we’re going to fall flat on our face with the biggest, epic fail in combat sports, which it won’t be but if it does, it’s going to be trying the biggest and best things ever.
“We’re not going to fail by stumbling over, doing a little arena show that didn’t work. We’re going to fail by ‘hey we tried to do a $100 million tournament and we just couldn’t make it work’ but I really think we have the recipe for what the fans want right now. Pure excitement, non-stop action the entire fight long and we treat the fighters great.”
While plans are still coming together, Feldman expects all the details for the tournament to be revealed in the next few weeks.
“In the next two weeks, we actually have three planning sessions to really map this thing out,” Feldman said. “I think two to three weeks from now, I’ll be able to announce the full details, how the prize money dwindles down for everybody and what the main prize is and how it’s going to work for everybody. I think when we do that, everybody is going to get very, very excited about this.”
