Conor McGregor, now a part owner of BKFC, is committed to the organization and plans to eventually fight bare-knuckle himself, with BKFC president David Feldman confident in McGregor’s influence and dedication to growing the promotion despite UFC’s dominance.
Conor McGregor is anything but an owner in name only when it comes to his investment in BKFC. The former two-division UFC champion—who became a part owner in BKFC back in April—is so serious about his passion for bare-knuckle fighting that he’s promising to eventually take the gloves off and set foot in the ring for a fight himself.
With only two fights remaining on his current UFC contract and the chance to act as his own promoter, BKFC president and founder David Feldman is taking McGregor’s declaration seriously. “Unless he’s the best salesman in the world, the talks that we’ve had it’s like ‘I’m fighting here,’” Feldman told MMA Fighting. “I’m like yeah, OK. He [said] ‘I’m fighting here.’”
“I go, ‘Why wouldn’t you fight here?’ Because you have equity in the company and if you fight here, you’ll probably make more money than anywhere else in the world because of what it’s going to do for the company. So I truly believe what you said — I think 100 percent he fights here.”
The UFC recently announced that Michael Chandler would fight Charles Oliveira in November after he spent nearly two years waiting for a matchup against McGregor. This prompted the Irish superstar to suggest a co-promotion with BKFC so he could get back in action sooner rather than later.
While there’s no doubting McGregor’s immense drawing power and the influence he holds with UFC, Feldman knows there’s no chance UFC would ever co-promote with him. It’s not because there isn’t mutual respect between the promotions.
“The UFC doesn’t need us,” Feldman said. “They don’t need us. We need to [co-promote] with them, they don’t need to [co-promote] with us, which would be phenomenal — they’re not going to do it. If they do Conor McGregor with anything, he don’t need to [co-promote] with us.”
That means McGregor would need to leave UFC to fight for BKFC, but Feldman has stopped doubting his new business partner after seeing his commitment over these past few months. McGregor could have easily injected some cash into BKFC, called himself a co-owner and then faded into the background after grabbing a few headlines.
Feldman says that interpretations of McGregor’s involvement couldn’t be further from the truth. “He’s been unbelievable,” Feldman said about McGregor. “He’s really been a partner so far. Blew away my expectations.”
Doing interviews, post-fight press conferences, meeting fighters—he’s all in. “He’s going over and hugging the fighters and telling them, ‘Come on let’s do this!’ He’s sitting there ringside cheering for them. He’s posting all the time about it.”
“We had a great talk this weekend, it was just me and him talking and I said to him ‘I don’t know if you really believe me, but this is going to be the biggest thing in the world in a few years, there’s nothing that’s going to be bigger than this, trust me.’ He goes, ‘It’s going to be two years.’”
Considering that just about everything McGregor touches turns to gold, it’s tough to imagine he won’t find a way to build BKFC into a powerhouse that will go toe-to-toe with just about any other combat sports organization out there.
Feldman is realistic when it comes to size and scale because he knows the UFC is a promotional juggernaut that won’t be toppled. Still, he admits that the exponential growth of BKFC over these past few years has blown away even his biggest expectations.
And he expects McGregor to help them grow even bigger in the future. “[Conor] sees the vision,” Feldman said. “Are we ever going to be the biggest combat sport in the world? Probably not honestly but we’re definitely going to be one of the biggest. Absolutely.”
The numbers just keep going up.