BKFC 93 loses three bouts two days out from Hollywood
BKFC 93 card changes: three bouts cancelled two days out, Chris Garcia vs Tyler Randall added, and the Hollywood card drops from eleven fights to eight.
BKFC 93 has lost three fights two days out, and the card that goes on Friday night in Hollywood, Florida is a quarter smaller than the one that was advertised.
The promotion pulled Nicholas Blume vs Caleb Avila at ironweight, Adyam Devillafuerte vs Miguel Hinojosa at lightweight and Eduardo Suarez vs Jose Davila at featherweight on Wednesday. No reason has been given for any of the three. Between them the six fighters carried a combined 4-5 bare-knuckle record, and two of them, Hinojosa and Davila, would have been making their promotional debuts.
One replacement has gone in. Chris Garcia, 6-1 in BKFC, meets Tyler Randall, 4-4, at flyweight, and Garcia is a heavy favorite at minus 688. That takes the BKFC 93 running order from eleven bouts to eight.
It is the second reshuffle on this show. On August 30 the promotion moved Anthony Garrett out of the main event and Bear Hill in, which is a straight swap on paper: both men are 3-1 under the BKFC banner. What it did not change is the price. Leonardo Perdomo is 11-0 in bare-knuckle and closed at minus 1475, and he would have been the shortest favorite on the card against either of them.
Felony, again
Photo: Bruno Massami / CC BY 3.0
The co-main survives, which means the fight most people will click for is still on. Charles Bennett, who is 31-44-2 across 77 recorded professional MMA fights and 1-4 in BKFC, faces Bryan Duran at featherweight. Duran is 8-1-1 in the promotion and closed at minus 1233, which is the second shortest number on the card behind Perdomo.
There is a version of this note where I get on a soapbox about a 46-year-old with 91 recorded professional fights across six combat sports being booked into a bare-knuckle co-main against an 8-1-1 prospect, and about how that booking exists because of who Bennett is rather than what he can still do. Consider it gotten on. But the sport has never once declined to sell this booking, and the numbers say what they say: one win in five under these rules, and a 0-4 line in bare-knuckle MMA on top of it.
What is left otherwise is a card built almost entirely on BKFC regulars. Gee Perez, 7-2, faces the unbeaten Andrew Strode, 4-0, in the closest fight on the card by price, Strode minus 153 and Perez plus 117, and the only bout where a man with four bare-knuckle fights to his name is the favorite. Esteban Rodriguez, 6-1, meets Stephen Townsel, 6-5. Matt Russo, 4-1, takes on the unbeaten Jancarlos Rivera, 3-0. Murat Kazgan and James Rodriguez are both 1-1. Ernesto Suarez, 2-0, closes the running order against Ronny Hauser, 1-1.
Ernesto Suarez, it should be noted, keeps his fight. Eduardo Suarez, one of the three cut on Wednesday, does not.
BKFC 93 is at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida on Friday, September 11. Doors and the undercard start at 7:00 p.m. ET, with the main card at 8:00 p.m. ET, and the card and start times by country are here.