Julio Alberto Perez Rodriguez is scheduled to fight Stephen Townsel as part of the upcoming Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) 85 boxing event later tonight (Dec. 5) at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Unfortunately, the “Cuban Horse” may be forced to fight for free after failing to reach his ticket sales quota, which appears to be “no secret” in the fight business.
“I want to make this video without any intention of hurting anyone or speaking ill of anyone, but something just
happened to me,” Rodriguez said in a video posted to his Facebook channel. “There’s a person I always give a couple of tickets to for them to sell for me. They always sell 20, 30 tickets for me. I gave them about 20 tickets, and they returned them to me yesterday. They waited until the last day and didn’t tell me anything. And maybe they thought they were going to sell them, you know? I don’t blame them or anything, because in the end, it’s a favor, but they should have told me a few days earlier, so I could have picked up the tickets.”
“As for me, I trusted them and didn’t write it down or anything,” Rodriguez added. “As for them, since they didn’t write to me or anything, I thought they had sold them, as always, and I was left with about 20, 30 tickets. There’s no secret to anyone that if you don’t sell tickets, you don’t get paid. So I’m going to fight for free, and nobody wants to go up there to take punches and fight for free. I’m going to do it.”
Here’s the video in question:
Rodriguez successfully made weight for his Townsel fight at 204.2 pounds.
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen from here on out with my career going forward because I’m not going to fight for free for anyone,” Rodriguez continued. “I’m going to do right by them with this, with the people who supported me for this fight, the people who bought the tickets. I am going to do right by them, and I’m going to go up there and give it my all. After this fight, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe I’ll decide not to fight anymore. I don’t know what’s going to happen because I really don’t feel well at all.”
“I want to tell you that I’m moving forward,” an emotional Rodriguez said. “No fear here. Absolutely nothing. I’m going to crack my opponent’s head open, and three more they put in front of me after that. Thanks everyone for the support. Whoever wants to buy a ticket from me, I’ll bring it to your house today. Today is the last day I’m going to sell you the tickets. Whoever wants to support me, write to me.”
This marks the second ticket controversy surrounding BKFC in 2025.
Back in October, BKFC pulled former UFC champion Frankie Edgar from its “Garden State” fight card and blamed “The Answer’s” medical report for its decision to cancel the contest. Edgar, however, suggests the promotion didn’t sell enough tickets to cover his fight purse and was forced to cut its losses.
“I don’t know what BKFC is going to do, but this ain’t a good look,” Edgar told Champ & The Tramp. “I want to be more mad and more pissed off about it, but I just can’t let it consume me that much, but you guys dogged me in my home state. They didn’t sell enough tickets and they figure let’s get one of the highest-paid guys on the card and get him off the card, we don’t have to pay him. Or they lost a sponsor. These are all speculations. I thought BKFC had something. I was like, ‘Wow, this is pretty entertaining. They got something.’ But not if they treat fighters like this. Because I’ll tell you what, fighters out there, beware.”
BKFC 85 streams live tonight on DAZN.
