Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship president David Feldman no longer wants Luke Rockhold to compete again in his promotion despite having one fight left on his contract. According to the executive, the fighter simply “doesn’t have that type of ‘it’ for BKFC.”
Feldman made the comment (via MMA Junkie) in response to Rockhold’s performance in his debut performance at BKFC 41 in April. The former UFC middleweight champion faced another former UFC fighter, Mike Perry, who is currently competing in the Middleweight division of BKFC. However, during the second round of the fight, Rockhold lost a tooth and the bout via TKO.
Unfortunately, Feldman wasn’t impressed that the bout ended with a missing tooth. With this, the exec stressed that BKFC is not for everyone, including Rockhold.
“It’s not built for everybody, and we want someone that, if he does get his tooth knocked out – for instance, Britain Hart and Bec Rawlings, two women in our organization got their teeth knocked out and kept fighting and made it the distance,” Feldman said. “So he just doesn’t have that type of ‘it’ for BKFC that we needed, so we’re not going to exercise our right.
“Good guy, great fighter, great accolades, did so many things in MMA, a legend. I mean, awesome. Not taking anything away from his fighting ability, but I don’t think he’s a bare knuckle fighter.”
In line with that, Feldman revealed the fighter still has one fight left in his contract but said that the company decided not to push it. According to Feldman, the experience might also prevent Rockhold from continuing the BKFC journey.
“We have an option on a second fight with him, but we’re not going to exercise it,” Feldman said. “We don’t want to. I certainly don’t want to, and I don’t know if he wants to after getting his teeth knocked out. This sport’s different.”
Fortunately, it seems BKFC and Rockhold are on the same page. Despite the experience and the BKFC no longer giving him another fight, it was reported in June that the fighter was considering joining the Karate Combat.
“We talked. You never know,” Rockhold told Cageside Press months ago. “Talk is talk. Talk is talk, but I like to walk the walk. We’re talking. We’re not walking yet, but maybe we can get to run soon. We’re setting kick records, you know what I mean? Coming off the couch. Easy.”
