Tomorrow night at BKFC‘s Knucklemania 2, Chad Mendes (18-5 MMA) will be making his bare knuckle boxing debut. Mendes will be taking on Joshuah Alvarez (1-1 Bare Knuckle) who will be making his third appearance with BKFC.
For Mendes, BKFC’s Knucklemania will be the first time we’ve seen him compete in combat sports since the end of 2018. The last time we saw Mendes was at UFC 232 when he was taking on the now featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski.
While Mendes had some moments here and there, he was ultimately stopped in the second round of that fight. It was just his second fight in the UFC after returning from a two-year absence due to a positive PED test.
Earlier in the year, Mendes had emphatically stopped Myles Jury. After he lost to Volkanovski, Mendes announced his retirement from MMA. However, just a few years later, he started getting that competitive itch back.
He started posting photos of himself boxing and teased a comeback. While many jumped to the conclusion that he would be returning to the UFC, Mendes announced that he had signed with BKFC and would be taking his talents to bare knuckle.
Under contract with BKFC and the UFC
It’s been reported that Mendes is getting a fat paycheck for his bout tomorrow night at BKFC’s Knucklemania. In fact, it’s been reported that his base pay aligns with what Francis Ngannou made for his title defense against Ciryl Gane last month.
An interesting note from Mendes came this week when he stated that he was still under contract with the UFC. In fact, Mendes has three fights left on his current deal and needed to get the UFC’s permission to sign on for BKFC.
The promotion approved Mendes making the switch which allowed him to compete. When asked if he would consider returning to the UFC, Mendes told MMA Junkie that he would never under the deal that he currently has with three fights left.
Hard to blame him considering the guarantee payout tomorrow night is astronomically higher than his UFC guarantee. He said he would consider it but only under a new deal. With Mendes having been out of the UFC for some time, I don’t see that happening.
With that, it’s likely going to be BKFC for Mendes permanently moving forward. I’m very curious to watch him tomorrow night. Mendes has a wrestling base, but he’s always shown great power in his hands. It’ll be interesting to see how he translates to BKFC.