According to BKFC President David Feldman, former UFC Flyweight and newest member of his promotion, Paige VanZant’s debut has been announced for Super Bowl weekend. After signing with the upstart combat sports league, she and her knuckles will be exposed to the further physical brutality of the fight world on February 5. VanZant’s last fight was a submission loss against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu ace Amanda Ribas at UFC 251. This loss left her status in limbo, forcing her to test the free agent market following a conversation with Dana White.
“Yeah, we’re going to do the Friday before the Super Bowl, right around the Super Bowl, where it’s going to be,” Feldman told MMA Fighting. “It’s going to be a great event for us. We’re going to do Friday, Feb. 5, Paige VanZant, that will be her debut for us.”
The former “Dancing With The Stars” contestant has yet to be matched up with an opponent, but with the biggest sporting event in the nation covered by over 150 nations coming despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, holding the BKFC event with VanZant’s first fight should be a strong watch for full-contact sports enthusiasts.
With both events 48 hours apart from each other, Feldman is flexing his marketing muscle, using the mainstream media, who will feast their eyes on covering the main event of that weekend by poaching more followers to check out the outlaw fight company. On a testosterone filled weekend of sports and entertainment, with a dose of estrogen on VanZant’s part, this calls to be a pivotal weekend for Feldman and his team to bring a strong front to the press in the months leading up to the event by finding fighters, whether they are defending champions or veteran mainstays from other fight promotions to give the crowd a card to watching from the first preliminary matchup to the main event.
Feldman also announced, since she has done her share of reality television, that she could be slated to fight in either the main event or the co-main event. Nothing is official on the spot she’ll be put in either, but she already has a special series the company will feature her in entitled Paige VanZant: Ungloved. This will be an inside look at her life behind the scenes, training for her fight, as well as covering her home life, along with everything else in between leading up to the biggest weekend of the sports year.
This should be a great build up to get the promotion and VanZant further publicized to garner more viewers to embrace the underground atmosphere of bare knuckle fighting.
