When a champion boxer meets an MMA fighter in a bare-knuckle fight you know it’s getting weird in the best way.
When former boxing world champion, Paulie Malignaggi announced that he would become the newest fighter to do bare-knuckle boxing, it was a watershed moment.
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The sport that has been called “the next billion dollar business” by Forbes now has its star, a legitimate former boxing Champion. No disrespect to the myriad MMA stars that have crossed over but this was huge.
Then his opponent, Artem Lobov was announced and all hell broke loose. These two had beef dating back to Malignaggi being invited to help with famous Lobov teammate, Conor McGregor’s training for his historic match against Floyd Mayweather.
Since then the two have had a vicious war of words and Malignaggi has even slapped and spit in Lobov’s face. Their fight is going to be epic not only for the fans but for this burgeoning sport in need of a breakthrough.
We talked to Paulie, Artem, former MMA star Chris Leben, and BKFC President David Feldman in this episode.