Luke Rockhold is not sold on bare-knuckle boxing as a sport.
The former UFC middleweight champion tried his hand at bare-knuckle boxing when he fought Mike Perry at BKFC 41 in April 2023. Rockhold broke his teeth in a second-round TKO loss.
“Bare-knuckle boxing is not a fight,” Rockhold told MMA Fighting. “I realized going in there, I’m not losing my f*cking teeth without using everything I’ve worked for my whole life. People are f*cking dumb. That’s a dumbass sport. Metal (ropes) that you just hit, and they throw you back into the brawl. There’s no way to gauge that distance, and it’s like who’s willing to lose their face first for f*cking nothing.”
Rockhold says he would consider bare-knuckle boxing if they added one more element to the ruleset.
“One thing that I would do that I think is way more badass, and not so f*cking stupid, because you can’t gauge distance in bare-knuckle boxing,” Rockhold said. “I would do bare-knuckle kickboxing. I would f*cking rematch Mike Perry and put him to sleep. I don’t think he wants that.
“There’s no way to gauge distance in bare-knuckle boxing, and they’ve got metal ropes, you’re just bouncing in and out. Bare-knuckle kickboxing, I think there would be actually some technique to it, and I think that would be badass. That would be a real, real fight, and that would be fun. I’d f*ck somebody up in that.”
Rockhold will try his hand at boxing when he takes on fellow ex-UFC fighter Darren TIll in the Misfits Boxing 22: Ring of Thrones main event on Aug. 30 at AO Arena from Manchester, England.
