Paige VanZant is currently in negotiations with the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship after her contract with the UFC expired. ‘PVZ’ fought for what appears to be the last time in MMA’s premier promotion at UFC 251 suffering a quick submission loss against rising star, Amanda Ribas.
Post-fight UFC boss Dana White advised Paige VanZant to explore free agency after suffering such a dominant loss after complaining about her pay consistently in recent months. It now appears VanZant is taking White’s advice and fielding offers from various promotions including BKFC. Mike Russell was first to break news of ongoing talks between VanZant and BKFC
“Hearing Paige VanZant is close to finalizing a deal with @bareknucklefc,” Russell wrote on social media.
Eric Kowal who works with BKFC as well as running MyMMANews.com confirmed talks are ongoing but are nowhere close to being finalized, he said.
“There are talks, nothing close yet,” Kowal wrote, clarifying on the talks between VanZant and BKFC.
“I can confirm there are talks,” he added. “I work for the company. Just asked [BKFC President] David [Feldman] about your Tweet cause he asked me 2 weeks ago for thoughts on possibly signing her. Today he said there are talks but nothing close. Like you said ‘we’ll see’ but this is latest.”
VanZant has previously said she wants to fight again in 2020 and will be hoping to get a deal done quick with another promotion to avoid an unnecessary lay off.
“Before the fight, I had said I might need to have one more arm surgery to feel 100 percent, but even through this, I do feel 100 percent, and I’m hoping to sign a new fight promotion with somebody and fight this year if I can.”
“I want to fight as soon as possible,” VanZant said. “In my mind, I’m going to go ahead and delete that last fight and start over. I don’t know how long this negotiation stuff goes.”
Do you think Paige VanZant will succeed in BKFC?