Paulie Malignaggi has signed an exclusive deal with the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. I am so surprised about this and think it is a crazy move for Paulie UNLESS he is making a ton of money. I don't understand why he would come out of retirement to fight in a new league in a format he has not fought in before. Not only that this format put him a risk of significantly more damage than Boxing.
Some sources are speculating that a fight with Conor's stablemate Artem Lobov is in the works, but this is not confirmed at this time. Artem has also signed with BKFC and has a fight scheduled for April 20th against Jason Knight.
Here is where you have to give Floyd a lot of credit. He came back to make $3 million for an exhibition where he takes no damage. Paulie is going to take a lot of damage in this format.
Boxers do not realize how different it is when you go down to MMA gloves, let alone bare knuckles. Some defensive moves that they have drilled for their entire career no longer work when you do not have the padding of the glove to act as a defensive measure.
Paulie is 38 years old and I think a few hard fights in the BKFC are going to take years off of his life.