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Knucklemania VI: Ticket Sales “Outpacing” 2025 as BKFC Looks to Build on Record-Breaking Philadelphia Success
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Was anybody really surprised last January when Bare Knuckle FC set Philadelphia’s modern combat sports attendance record?
Probably not, if you’ve followed the local scene from South Philly, down to Atlantic City, and up to Bensalem. There’s always been a robust underground circuit in the Delaware Valley; it was just a matter of putting an event inside of the city’s biggest arena and asking the faithful to show up at Wells Fargo Center, which they did, more than 17,000 in total.
Knucklemania 5 confirmed what we already knew, that the fight game sells tickets in these parts. The event went so well that BKFC President David Feldman came right back in 2026 with Knucklemania 6 inside of the rebranded Xfinity Mobile Arena.
“There’s definitely a good buzz,” Feldman told Crossing Broad after Wednesday’s media workouts inside of Eddie Alvarez’s Newtown gym. “We’re above pace from last year when we sold out and broke the combat sports attendance record with 17,762 tickets. We’re about 1,700 tickets above pace on timing from last year, so we feel like we’re going to eclipse that. That’s gonna be phenomenal. To come here and set records here in our hometown is amazing.”
Ticket prices start around $54 as of publication. The lower bowl is slim pickings, but some corner and pit seats remain.
The February 7th card is headlined by heavyweights Ben Rothwell and Andrei Arlovski, who fought twice in MMA. Veterans Lorenzo Hunt and Yoel Romero have the co-main event while a slew of Philly fighters round out the main card and prelims. That includes John Garbarino, who barged his way onto the scene last year after smashing a cannoli over his opponents’ head at the weigh-ins, winning the fight, then proposing to his girlfriend inside of the ring.
In 2025, the selling point was former UFC and Bellator lightweight champion Alvarez headlining against fellow UFC alumnus Jeremy Stephens. This year, interest is holding steady even without a local fighter in the main or co-main.
“We’ll probably be at about 60% of the people that came last year and then 40% new people this year, which is great,” Feldman predicted. “If we do it every year it’s going to be easy to sell. We sold a lot of tickets right off the rip, more tickets than we’ve ever sold on our presale and first day of sale. We’re outpacing last year, which is even better than you would think, only because we had a big-time Philadelphia guy headlining in Eddie. We don’t have that as the main event this year. We have great fighters that are known all over the world, but they’re not Philadelphia guys. And we’re still outpacing, so that’s a good thing for BKFC.”
Feldman noted future plans to use Philadelphia as the promotion’s “hub,” saying there have been talks with the city to build a training facility similar to the UFC Apex out in Las Vegas.
More details on that? Hopefully soon.
Local talent, relatable product
Two of the local fighters on the Knucklemania VI card are Pat “The Brick” Brady out of South Jersey, and Bucks County’s Lex Ludlow. Brady fought and won at Knucklemania V while Ludlow is appearing at this event for the first time.
They were part of the group on hand in Newtown, training with Philadelphia MMA brothers Kyle and Chris Daukaus.
Most of the BKFC fighters from the Philadelphia region have fought at smaller local venues, like the 2300 Arena of ECW fame, but there’s been nothing larger than Knucklemania.
“I think, genuinely, anybody who went to the event last year had a good time,” said Brady. “I didn’t hear anyone say that they were unhappy with the product. Everybody was pleased. If you went last year, why wouldn’t you go again this year? What would be your reason not to? Even more, if you went last year, why wouldn’t you bring somebody else this year, or maybe more? What if the person who went last year told 10 people (how good of a time they had)? Then maybe 2-3 of those people go. To me, it’s a no-brainer. The product is good. The fights were great. The production was top notch. Why wouldn’t you tell your friends that you had a great time?”
The thing about BKFC is that it’s largely accessible. It’s two men or two women slugging it out. There’s no MMA learning curve, trying to figure out the finer points of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or Russian Sambo. You don’t run into some of the issues compromising mixed martial arts, for instance, grapplers holding strikers against the fence or laying on top of them. Throwing hands was the human species’ first martial art.
“There’s no gloves, there’s no takedowns, there’s no grappling,” said Ludlow, who notes that he’s sold 350 tickets to friends, family, and the like. “I always say it’s like two dudes fighting in a ShopRite parking lot. Everybody can kind of relate to it. You meet 99% of men and they’ve probably gotten into at least one fight. And all you need to know is how to throw a right punch and a left punch. You don’t even need to know the names, you just need to know how to throw a left and a right.”
“When I pitched this sport to investors, I tell them that it’s fun and it’s exciting and blah blah, and it is,” said Feldman of the product. “But the most important thing is that it’s relatable. Meaning that every man, woman, child either punched someone in the face, been punched in the face, saw someone else do it. They understand it, they get it, they know it, and that’s why at the fight they’re almost like, ‘man I wonder if I could have got in there.’ They have a chance to back in and be a part of it. It’s an ‘addressable audience,’ and we talk about that all the time in our business meetings. It’s bigger than anything else out there. Anybody can get into this.”
It all interfaces with the basic relationship that Philadelphia sports fans have with their athletes. You’ve earned the respect of the crowd if you give your best effort and show that you care. Maybe that’s why the fight game has always resonated in this market, because there’s a simple reciprocity that has always existed. Whatever you give to the fans, they’ll return it tenfold, so long as it’s genuine.
“You remember Ricky Watters? That shit doesn’t go over well,” laughed Brady, recalling the ‘for who? for what?‘ quote from 1995, when the Eagles running back short-armed a pass and was rightfully scorned. “You can’t hide here. There’s no hiding in the center of the ring.”
“But I can’t tell you how many people have reached out on social media,” he continued. “People who I’ve never met and never knew, and told me they were fans. To me, that’s what we’re doing. We’re putting on a show. We’re out there to perform. As long as you put your best foot forward, it’s a win/win.”
Giving Philadelphia a chance
Alvarez suffered a broken jaw in last year’s headlining fight, the bout going down in the record books as a third-round corner stoppage. He’s taken the last year off and has enjoyed helping other guys prepare for their fights, which he says “slows me down and keeps me safe.”
This time around, he’s a mentor and figurehead for the younger fighters training at his “Underground Kings” gym.
“I’m just excited about growing the sport here in Philadelphia,” Alvarez said. “The biggest issue for me was that the largest name was UFC, right? We couldn’t get them to come to our arenas. We’re battling Dubai and battling with the UK and all of these other big stadiums. We couldn’t get UFC or any big combat sport (promotion) to come to Philadelphia. Bare Knuckle was the first to do it. Bare Knuckle was the first to take the risk with the last Knucklemania, and it was proven right away that the fans are here, the culture is here, we want to see fighting, we want to watch it. I wanted to be a part of that, bringing combat sports back to Philadelphia. Bare Knuckle is doing it, they’re the only one doing it, and they happen to be the greatest show on Earth. You come to a live Bare Knuckle event, there’s nothing like it. I’m glad Philadelphia fans get to experience what I already knew was one of the best shows.”
UFC hasn’t been to Philadelphia since 2019, when Justin Gaethje KO’d Edson Barboza at a Fight Night event in front of 11,000 fans. There were no Philadelphia fighters on the card.
Interestingly enough, that lineup was booked shortly after Alvarez left the UFC for ONE Championship. The Philly Fight Night wound up taking place on the same weekend as Eddie’s ONE debut in Tokyo.
“I think that was out of spite,” Alvarez laughed, jokingly. “But the timing of that was just too good.”
More recently, there was an Atlantic City card headlined by Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot in 2024, while Bellator and PFL frequented South Jersey while acting like Philadelphia didn’t exist. Oftentimes, the city proper has been ignored while the big promotions go to Newark, New York, AC, and other spots along the mid-Atlantic seaboard.
Finally, Alvarez was able to cross off a bucket list item when he headlined Knucklemania V at age 41.
“I think most promoters do what makes sense for money, right?” he mused. “If the money doesn’t make sense, and the city doesn’t incentivize the promotion enough, then it is what it is. The thing about UFC is that there are cities out there who pay them millions of dollars to come. Why would they go to a city if they’re not incentivized and not given a check? So the market’s different for the UFC than it is for other promoters. But Dave Feldman will take money out of his own pocket to put a show on for us and the fans.”
“I just feel like other big names, UFC or whoever, they don’t take notice and go ‘hey Philly has a lot of fans who watch fighting and are excited about it.’ We’d sell out arenas probably quarterly. Maybe more than quarterly, every month or so.”
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com