Robbie Lawler says a bare-knuckle fight with Mike Perry under the BKFC banner got very close to happening before he decided he didn’t want any part of it. MiddleEasy reported the comments this week. Lawler confirmed that talks for the matchup advanced far enough to be a real possibility, but the former UFC welterweight champion ultimately chose to stay out of the bare-knuckle game.
That’s all the detail available on the Perry talks. The report doesn’t include a timeline, a proposed date or Lawler’s reasons for turning it down, and I’m not going to fill in blanks the sources leave empty.
What Lawler said yes to is a lot easier to document. He makes his RAF debut Friday night at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas, facing Khamzat Chimaev in a catchweight wrestling match in the co-main event of RAF 14. Chimaev comes in 2-0 in the promotion. Lawler is 0-0, which is the kind of record that tells you nothing and makes pricing a match like this a guessing game. The two did their faceoff on Thursday, and both MMA Fighting and MMA Junkie posted the footage on X.
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The headliner is Arman Tsarukyan against Dillon Danis. Tsarukyan is trying to bounce back from his first RAF loss, and Danis is 0-2 in the promotion. That pairing produced the loudest moment of fight week. At Thursday’s press conference, Danis wore a shirt reading “Khamzat is my bitch” with a beardless photo of Chimaev, a callback to their post-match brawl at RAF 10 in June. Tsarukyan went after Danis, the stage turned into a scrum, and Chimaev, Lawler’s opponent, waded into the middle of it.
Lawler watched from the front row and barely moved. He told MMA Fighting afterward that he had no interest in the chaos.
“It is what it is,” Lawler said. “It’s just, I’m here to wrestle and compete. I’m just keeping my life simple and I’m not trying to get involved in any of that nonsense.”
He then went a step further and asked fighters to clean up their act, with younger fans in mind.
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“It’s just, you want to put your best foot forward and a lot of kids are watching this, guys who are excited about wrestling,” Lawler said. “It’s not always about the show and it’s not about the eyes. It’s about freaking having this sport be built and taking it to another level.”
He closed with this: “And I just think we need to do a better job as competitors.”
Here’s my take. A guy who built his reputation as one of the most exciting fighters in MMA history had a bare-knuckle payday with Mike Perry sitting on the table, and he passed on it for a wrestling match where nobody gets punched in the face. I’ve watched plenty of retired fighters take that bare-knuckle bet at bad odds because the check was right there. Lawler folded the hand, and that’s the smartest wager anyone in this story has made all week. The downside is that he swapped Perry’s fists for Chimaev’s double legs, and anybody who has watched Chimaev chain-wrestle knows that isn’t exactly a vacation. If you’re looking for a live underdog Friday night, check what kind of price you’re getting on Lawler before you lock anything in. A 2-0 RAF record and Chimaev’s wrestling pedigree make him the obvious favorite. Then again, Chimaev spent Thursday night brawling with Dillon Danis on a press conference stage while Lawler sat there looking like he was waiting for his bus. I’d rather back the calm guy.
