{"id":549010,"date":"2026-04-24T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T22:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/549010\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T22:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T22:07:14","slug":"pissed-ufc-star-turned-bare-knuckle-champ-held-hostage-by-bkfc-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/549010\/","title":{"rendered":"Pissed UFC star turned bare knuckle champ held hostage by BKFC contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sounds great on paper, but the frustrated \u201cMagician\u201d has not competed in bare knuckle boxing for over two years and can\u2019t understand why the promotion won\u2019t book his BKFC return. Perhaps it was too busy courting other UFC veterans, like former welterweight title challenger Darren Till<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[BKFC] is the one who signed me [to] a new contract saying that I can\u2019t fight for any other promotions,\u201d Dodson told MMA Fighting<\/a>. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been waiting for them to go ahead and give me my next victim. They forced me to watch the inaugural flyweight interim world champion fight happen, which pissed me off, because I asked to fight both those guys and they told me neither one of them were ready for me. I got a winner and then okay cool, I\u2019m going to fight one of these dudes, I thought I was going to fight the winner. Andrew [Strode] vacated the title and then Gee [Perez] has been fighting left and right so I\u2019m like yo, when the hell am I going to get the chance to fight?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dodson\u2019s last BKFC fight came in a unanimous draw against Dagoberto Aguero at BKFC 59 back in March 2024. The former UFC flyweight title challenger went on to split a pair of fights under the RIZIN banner<\/a> in 2024 and 2025 and is patiently awaiting his next BKFC assignment.<\/p>\n

Dodson (4-0-1) signed a new deal after his last RIZIN fight that prevents him from competing outside the promotion; which he doesn\u2019t mind, so long as BKFC keeps him active. Unfortunately, we\u2019re heading into May 2026 and the 41 year-old \u201cMagician\u201d has yet to secure a date for his in-ring return.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently they can do whatever they want with me and pretty much [hold me] as a hostage,\u201d Dodson continued. \u201cI need to go ahead and figure this out. This is frustrating. Because I don\u2019t want to be that guy. I don\u2019t want to sit there and talk a bunch of crap about an organization because we already know how that goes. The more shit talking you do about an organization, they\u2019re just going to postpone you having a fight ever. They\u2019re not doing me a favor because I\u2019m literally holding their belt. I\u2019m promoting them. I\u2019m showcasing how the flyweights should be interacting with the rest of the world by going out and doing all these public events and talking to people and showcasing I\u2019m their champion. Why can\u2019t they take care of their champion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, last year, I was going to fight in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, [and] end up fighting in October,\u201d Perry told MMA Fighting<\/a>. \u201cDude, I was supposed to fight every month in \u201825. Every month they told me, next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry, 34, has two fights remaining on his BKFC deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sounds great on paper, but the frustrated \u201cMagician\u201d has not competed in bare knuckle boxing for over two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[22721,2560,30367,101,914,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-549010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-bare-knuckle-boxing","9":"tag-boxing","10":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-ufc-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}