“We’re taking this sport to a global level like never before. Eight events in six weeks, four countries—this is the next evolution of combat sports.” Conor McGregor made this promise as his bare-knuckle fighting promotion arrived in Dubai back in April. Needless to say, with McGregor’s presence in the $411M business, the stakes were rising exponentially. And now, according to ‘The Notorious’, BKFC has become a worldwide sensation. In his journey to make the promotion go global, the team has secured an impressive venue for BKFC’s upcoming event. 

On August 2, 2025, the world will witness the bare-knuckle fighting promotion return to an epic arena. But before the return was possible, McGregor once mentioned bringing BKFC into the RAC Arena, with 30 K capacity, in Perth, Australia. On top of that, BKFC also circled around France, Spain, and the UAE. But now, the BKFC big guns have eyed a location in South Dakota. The venue is famous for hosting bike rallies, where 440K- 700K people attend the events. But it’s speculated that about 70K people can be accommodated at the venue. Nevertheless, in BKFC’s previous visit to the location, there were only around 15K fans in attendance. 

If you guessed it, we’re talking about the Sturgis Buffalo Chip, where BKFC is set to land on August 2. The official Instagram profile of the venue shared some visuals of BKFC bouts and advertised the upcoming event. The caption read, “@bareknucklefc is throwing down at the Chip, and it’s gonna get messy in the best way. The most brutal hands in the business are stepping into the cage, and you’ve got the best seat in the house.” And when ‘Mystic Mac’ came across the post, he shared it on his IG Story and wrote, “Back at the Buffalo Chip Bike Rally 🏍️.”

Of course, this wasn’t the first time BKFC came to Sturgis Buffalo Chip. BKFC 63, which featured the battle between Britain Hart and Taylor Starling, was also held at the same venue. To make things interesting, that event was also scheduled in August, but of 2024. This time, we can definitely expect the number of attendees to go beyond 15K. But with McGregor’s extended involvement in the fight promotion, many fans wondered about David Feldman’s opinion. Can McGregor really announce the fights? Or was it something that only Feldman was allowed to do? 

David Feldman gets honest about Conor McGregor’s involvement in the BKFC

During a conversation on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, the BKFC boss said, “I’m going to tell you that he has needle-moving equity. He has substantial equity in the company. He has enough equity to really make a big play here, and I think he’s going to. He’s going to have a say. He’s going to have opinions and say and ideas, and we look forward to it all.”

Getting McGregor as a partner was indeed a big win for the company. The business witnessed a boost in popularity not too long after that. The BKFC President once claimed that McGregor pushed the social media metrics up tenfold. Needless to say, it was a significant improvement for the bare-knuckle fight promotion. But does this mean he can say whatever he wants to? Well, it certainly seems that way. 

Feldman continued, “Blood, sweat, and tears, you don’t know what I had to do to get this thing to this point and I love talking about the company and being the guy there. I love it. But they don’t want to see me if they have a choice between me or Conor McGregor. So Conor McGregor all day long. The ones he can make that appearance to, would absolutely love him to do it, and he’s going to. He loves the sport because it’s as real as it gets.”

The Irish mixed martial artist’s charisma and social media presence played well in favor of BKFC. And with Feldman not minding McGregor’s announcements, we might actually hear more about the event on August 2, 2025, from the Irishman. Are you excited about BKFC returning to Sturgis Buffalo Chip?