Paige VanZant signs with BKFC, declines Bellator offer

Paige VanZant is likely bare-knuckle in her upcoming fight undertaking.

Right after ending her deal with the UFC, the 26-12 months-aged MMA star has preferred to indication with the upstart Bare Knuckle Battling Championships, several people with expertise of agreement talks told MMA Battling. Conditions of VanZant’s multi-fight deal have been not disclosed.

The information was initially described by ESPN.

VanZant on Wednesday posted a picture of her signing a deal, noting she is “about to transform the game” and promising struggle information “coming before long.”

BKFC and Bellator ended up two regarded suitors vying for VanZant immediately after her departure from the UFC, which came one month just after a 1st-spherical submission reduction to Amanda Ribas at UFC 251. Bellator President Scott Coker told MMA Preventing VanZant declined an offer you with the ViacomCBS-owned marketing, who has a agreement with her partner, Austin Vanderford.

The Ribas combat was VanZant’s first in 18 months immediately after a sequence of injury setbacks with her right arm, which was damaged in January 2018 all through a struggle with Jessica-Rose Clark. In a the latest interview with MMA Preventing, she claimed she would put off corrective surgical treatment to make a quick turnaround in the cage for a “comeback tale.”

“In my mind, I’m going to go forward and delete that last struggle and commence more than,” she reported. “I do not know how prolonged this negotiation stuff goes. I’m hoping brief, bring about I absolutely really don’t have any accidents. I really do not even know if I acquired strike, so I’m all set to struggle again.”

VanZant has competed in the octagon as a strawweight and flyweight. BKFC’s recent at present promotes a women’s division, whose champ, Bec Rawlings, dropped to VanZant by KO in the UFC in 2016.