Lorenzo Hunt and Mike Richman brought down the house – or at least the house backdrop – when they brawled onstage at the KnuckleMania 3 press conference on Thursday.
The middleweights quickly got testy while answering questions for media and then got physical after squaring off on opposite ends of the dais at the Albuquerque presser.
Hunt was first to make contact, slapping Bellator vet turned bare-knuckler Richman across the chin as BKFC President Dave Feldman attempted to intervene. Richman ducked under and shot for a takedown on Hunt, his opponent on Feb. 17 at Tingley Coliseum in Albuquerque, and the two briefly spilled over the dais. On their trip down, they brought the media backdrop as Feldman, security and other BKFC fighters attempted to regain control.
Eventually, Hunt and Richman were separated, and the BKFC set was raised again.
“It’s not something that we want – we don’t want to have these kind of antics up here,” Feldman said after the skirmish. “But at the end of the day, you have two guys that are A personalities, that think they’re the baddest man on the planet, that go face-to-face and don’t really like each other. Sometimes, this type of thing is going to happen.
“Unfortunately, it happened here. But on the same respect, I think it’s just a little preview of what you’re going to see here. … You’re going to find out who the best 185-pound bare-knuckle fighter in the planet is.”
It wouldn’t be the last time Hunt and Richman would clash as they continued to bicker at each other until the end of the presser.
