Ben Rothwell has a message for the bare knuckle boxing critics ahead of his upcoming fight at BKFC 41.
Rothwell, left the UFC after 13 years with the promotion and signed on with BKFC in April of 2022.
Making his debut at BKFC 30 in October of 2022, Rothwell defeated Bobo O’Bannon by KO (see that here).
BKFC 41 takes place tomorrow, Saturday, April 29th in Denver, Colorado. Ben Rothwell will be taking on Josh Copeland, who is set to make his second appearance after a successful debut in October, where he secured a knockout win over Levi Costa.
Speaking with ‘MMA Fighting‘, Rothwell spoke about BKFC and about the toll MMA took on him, saying:
“I understand people are like ‘oh bare knuckle!’ They don’t realize how dangerous MMA is. It’s funny because it’s MMA fans who are talking smack to some of the guys on the card with me, talking about CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and all this and that.”
“Do you guys not realize what a shin to the head will do to somebody or an elbow? All the risk that goes into the wrestling, landing on an arm wrong, submissions that go wrong. MMA is so much more dangerous and not to take away, (bare-knuckle fighting) is dangerous but that’s combat sports.”
Continuing, Rothwell stated:
“There’s people that tune in because it is so brutal. I want those people to know it’s brutal, yeah somebody’s going to be bleeding, get messed up. I want you to watch. It’s just a bunch of people, I’m trying to be nice here, I feel like they’re going to complain about everything. It’s just something to complain about. It’s whatever. I’m having a good time with this.”
“The training for the last year, my body is like thank you. I have a far higher output. I’m able to box for an hour, no problem and then I’m training the next morning and having no problems.”
Reflecting on his time during MMA, Ben Rothwell said:
“When I was doing MMA and doing a wrestling practice — a hard wrestling practice — I was f**king ended for days. My body hurt. That’s without even getting an injury. There’s a lot of things about this that have given me a lot of positives so it’s definitely given me some more years to fight.”
“We’re not getting paid for that. It’s brutal and at our level how hard we have to train for MMA, it’s brutal.”
Concluding, speaking about retirement, Rothwell said:
“People ask ‘when are you going to retire? I’m 41. When are you going to retire? That’s not up to me because as long as I have this fire inside of me to do this and do it like I’m doing it, I’m going to go. Yes, that day is going to come someday. There’s a day when I will be done but it’s not today and I wish to accomplish this goal I set for myself until that day comes.”
Will you be watching Ben Rothwell vs. Josh Copeland tomorrow night? Who are you betting on for the win?
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