Alan Belcher has been the BKFC heavyweight champion for less than a week, and he has lofty ambitions about the types of fights that could come next.
Belcher, a 15-fight UFC veteran, wrapped up his MMA career after a loss to Michael Bisping in April 2013. But in 2021, he made a comeback with BKFC, then had a boxing match, too. Net yet two years into that comeback, he beat Arnold Adams with a third-round knockout this past Saturday to win the heavyweight belt at BKFC 36.
It may seem like the culmination of why Belcher wanted to get back into a fight to begin with.
“Leaving the sport kind of didn’t sit right with me,” Belcher told MMA Junkie Radio. “After thinking about it for several years, age 36-37, I got to thinking, ‘Now, I think, would be the time, if I’m going to make this decision, let’s do it.’ I decided to fully go for it.”
Now that he’s heavyweight champ, he’ll have as big a target on his back as anyone in BKFC. Then there’s the additional intrigue of new fighters crossing over from MMA and boxing into the bareknuckle game all the time.
Of particular note is former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou, who is a free agent being courted by just about every promotion out there. Belcher thinks it could be a reality.
“I really feel like there’s going to be some big names, some big-money paydays – hopefully someone in boxing or MMA taking off the gloves and coming in and challenging me for the belt – Francis Ngannou or (Oleksandr) Usyk or Andy Ruiz, Tyson Fury, this type of thing,” Belcher said. “Those are the types of big-name fights I’d like to see happen by the end of 2023 (or) 2024.
“My big prediction is (there’s) going to be outside names come in and shed even more light on the bareknuckle sport and just get more impact and more notoriety to what we’re doing.”
If Ngannou came to BKFC for one of those big paydays, Belcher seems to understand many analysts would presume the ex-UFC champ would have the edge based on his power and size. After all, while Belcher is a heavyweight now, he fought in the UFC at middleweight. Ngannou is considered a different kind of big.
But Belcher doesn’t seem concerned about that at all.
“It’s a matter of not getting hit,” he said. “… I’m strong. I’m not as big as Francis Ngannou, but I have tendon strength. I’ve worked on my punches. I’ve been punching things since I was a kid. I have a nice punch – it’s plenty enough, I promise you, to knock out Francis Ngannou. … I promise you, it is not a problem to knock out someone of that size. They do not have any special power in their head.
“… I don’t believe that Francis Ngannou can knock me out, and I believe I can knock him out. When you’re talking about bareknuckle boxing, that’s the name of the game.”
