Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship is chasing a stadium show in Liverpool with Darren Till at the top of the bill, MMANews reported, and the promotion’s front office isn’t playing coy about it. BKFC president David Feldman told Bloody Elbow that the talks with Anfield, home of Liverpool Football Club, are “very, very serious,” and said he expected them to move forward the following week.
“We have to go big or we’ve got to go home because we have to prove ourselves to the combat sports world,” Feldman said.
The detail that makes this plausible is ownership. Anfield and Fenway Park both belong to Fenway Sports Group, and BKFC already ran a show at Fenway this past August. So the phone numbers are saved.
Till, 33, has been begging for an Anfield fight for years. The original plan was to win UFC gold and drag the promotion to his hometown, and that never came together for the former welterweight title challenger. Bare knuckle has been kinder. He’s 2-0 in the BKFC ring, most recently beating Yoel Romero at BKFC 94 in September, and he has one fight left on the three-fight deal he signed. Feldman told MMA Fighting that BKFC holds options on his next few fights and added, “There is going to be a longer relationship with BKFC and Darren Till.”
The Liverpool push picked up steam after Jake Paul walked away from advanced boxing talks with Till and chose PFL welterweight Cedric Doumbe instead. Feldman said he’d have let Till chase that kind of payday if BKFC had nothing lined up, but he was blunt about the pecking order: “If we have something that works for him, he’s going to do that first.”
As for who Till fights, Bloody Elbow reported that longtime rival Tommy Fury is the most likely opponent. The two were booked to box in 2025 before Fury withdrew, and Fury has been in talks with BKFC about a signing. Till didn’t exactly grease the wheels. On the Ariel Helwani Show on Monday, he said his manager had asked him to apologize to John Fury, and Till refused, saying he wouldn’t do it even if it guaranteed him a £10 million fight with Tommy.
Feldman’s response had the weary tone of a man doing math. “I don’t think Darren did us any good last night blasting Tommy Fury and John Fury on the podcast but it’s business and everyone’s in it to make money,” he told Bloody Elbow.
There’s a backup with local flavor, too. Rocky Fielding, the Scouser and former WBA super middleweight champion who was stopped by Canelo Alvarez with body shots in Round 3 back in 2018, reached out about fighting Till. “I’m not saying we’re gonna do him, but Rocky Fielding just hit me up,” Feldman said. Fielding last fought in November of last year, knocking out Simion Tchetha in the third round.
Feldman told MMA Fighting that one of the big names for Till will be part of an announcement in the next couple of weeks, with BKFC 100 and the next KnuckleMania both coming in 2027. Feldman also allowed that Till could fight back in the United States instead.
My take: I don’t price a fight until there’s ink on it, and the last time Till and Fury were booked, one of them pulled out. A Liverpool kid fighting bare-fisted at Anfield in front of a home crowd is the easiest ticket in British combat sports, so Feldman should get this done even if Fury plays hard to get, and Fielding is a perfectly good local villain. Feldman’s own clock, set on Nov. 4, puts the answer around Nov. 18.
