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Thiago Alves was supposed to fight fellow UFC export Phil Baroni in the BKFC main event this Fri. night (Sept. 11) in Daytona Beach, Fla., but “The New York Bad Ass” stopped communicating with bareknuckle boss David Feldman and was hastily removed from the “Sunshine State” headliner.
“It was honestly not good for the company,” Feldman told MMA Fighting. “It’s not even the responses we got, it’s the unresponsiveness that we were getting and we weren’t able to promote and get the fight going. We had to have medicals turned in and things weren’t done and then he contacted me and said ‘I want to fight’ and I said ‘we already replaced you’.”
Taking over for Baroni is TUF 16 punchline Julian Lane, who was immortalized for his cries of “Let me bang, bro” back in 2012. The rough-and-tumble “Nitrane,” now 33, is 2-2 after crossing over to bareknuckle boxing back in late 2018.
“The great thing about Julian Lane, he’s known for ‘let me bang, bro’ in The Ultimate Fighter but this guy comes to fight,” Feldman continued. “So this is going to be one hell of a main event — Julian Lane vs. Thiago Alves. So we’re excited about the replacement. We actually got a lot of great feedback on it, that’s going to be a tremendous fight.”
You can stream Friday night’s BKFC 12 event by clicking here.