EXCLUSIVE | Phil Baroni has a message for Chris Leben

Mixed martial arts veteran Chris Leben is coming out of retirement to fight the “New York Bad Ass” Phil Baroni under the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation banner.

MMAFighting was first to report the news.

Leben, who is now 37 years of age, was last seen in action at UFC 168 in December of 2013 where he suffered a first-round TKO loss to Uriah Hall.

During his exciting career, “The Crippler” has scored notable victories over the likes of Wanderlei Silva, Yoshihiro Akiyama, Alessio Sakara, Patrick Cote, Jorge Rivera, Luigi Fioravanti, Aaron Simpson, Mike Swick, Jorge Santiago and Terry Martin.

As for Leben’s upcoming opponent, Phil Baroni, the “New York Bad Ass” recently returned to the win column scoring a 24-second knockout victory over Matt Lagler at a King of the Cage event.

Phil Baroni recently sat down with BJPENN.com’s Chris Taylor where he discussed his newly announced fight and also shared a message for “The Crippler”.

“Yeah man it’s a cool fight. We finally meet up! There has been a lot of talk of this fight over the years. I’m just happy the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation had the balls to put this fight together. I couldn’t think of a bigger fight for me. Dana wanted to book this after the original TUF, but I ended up resigning with PRIDE because I wanted to fight Hendo (Dan Henderson) and Bustamonte and try to win the PRIDE GP. But I always watched him (Leben)after that. That offer to fight him got me watching all of his fights because you just never know. And here we are.”

Phil Baroni has a lot of respect for Leben and expects that their upcoming scrap will be nothing short of a war.

“He’s a good fighter. Very strong. Very physical and can take it as good as he can give it. I like to watch him. He don’t give a fuck! And I don’t give a fuck either, that’s why we’re doing straight bare fucking knuckle. Behind the the bar style. Take your shirt off and let’s trade bitch. Loser buys. You know the drill. I’m like 86 & 1 and 1 in these type of scraps or some shit.”

The “New York Bad Ass” ended the interview by send Leben the following message.

“I have a message for Chris Leben… Aloha Amigo train hard and rest easy god speed and party on see you soon honkey.”