UFC veterans Melvin Guillard, Josh Neer join growing WBKFF roster

World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation (WBKFF) has signed several new MMA veterans to its growing roster. The first is former UFC lightweight and welterweight Josh Neer. The second is former UFC, World Series of Fighting, Bellator, and Rizin veteran Melvin Guillard, who has competed in bareknuckle boxing bouts in the past. The promotion has also signed The Ultimate Fighter 26 veteran Christina Marks.

The promotion announced these new signings on social media.

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These are not the only high-profile signings WBKFF has made recently. The promotion also recently signed UFC veterans Phil Baroni and Chris Leben. The pair will fight on the promotion’s debut show, titled “Rise of Titans,” in October.

“He’s a good fighter,” Phil Baroni said of his WBKFF fight with Chris Leben on a recent episode of BJPENN.COM Radio. “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.”

“I can’t turn that fight down,” he added. “I can’t turn that fight down, that’s a real fight. And nobody wants to see me fucking take him down in a fight on the ground anyway. So we’re gonna have to go out there and trade, so why not just fucking take the gloves off? You know, fuck it. We’re gonna go out there, we’re gonna trade, we’re gonna meet in the middle of the ring. Fuck it, let’s just take off the fucking gloves then.”

According to a recent press release, “the WKBFF stable of fighters already exceeds 100 fighters.”

WKBFF is not be confused with BKFC, the bareknuckle promotion that recently promoted an event in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/19/2018.