Victor Ortiz Trades Gloves for Bare Knuckle: Inside the BKB Signing
Former WBC welterweight world champion Victor "Vicious" Ortiz has signed a multi-year, multi-fight deal with BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing, the Miami-based promotion announced. Ortiz — a 33-7-3 professional boxer with 25 knockouts, best known outside the ring for his run on Dancing With The Stars and a role in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables — becomes one of the most credentialed boxers ever to cross into the bare-knuckle ranks. "I've accomplished so much in gloved boxing," Ortiz said. "Now, bare knuckle is the next challenge."
The signing continues a pattern that has defined bare knuckle's rise in 2026: established combat-sports names, past their gloved primes but far from finished, using the format as a second act.
Who Victor Ortiz Is
Ortiz captured the WBC welterweight title in 2011 with a unanimous-decision win over Andre Berto in a fight that earned wide acclaim for its action. Later that year he faced Floyd Mayweather Jr. in one of the most-discussed bouts of the era, a fight that ended in a fourth-round knockout after a chaotic sequence following an Ortiz headbutt. That single night made Ortiz a household name to a mainstream audience that has never followed the sport closely.
He built on that recognition outside the ropes. Ortiz competed on Dancing With The Stars, appeared in The Expendables franchise, and took a recurring role on Hawaii Five-0 — a crossover profile that few active fighters can match. That name recognition, not just his 33-win record, is what BKB is buying.
Why BKB, and Why Bare Knuckle
BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing, founded in 2015 and known for its triangular ring — "the Trigon" — is one of the two major American bare-knuckle promotions alongside BKFC. Landing a former world champion is a statement of intent from a promotion working to close the visibility gap.
The promotion's leadership framed the deal as a marquee acquisition. Founder Mike Vazquez called Ortiz "a true legend with a world-class resume and star power that transcends boxing," and CEO David Tetreault pointed to Ortiz's title experience, power, and crossover appeal as central to BKB's expansion plans.
For Ortiz, the logic is the one bare knuckle keeps offering aging boxers: a stage where a heavy-handed, aggressive style plays even better without gloves, and where a recognizable name still draws. Ortiz has said he sees the format as a way to add a new chapter to his legacy in the rawest form of the sport — and he has publicly floated bare-knuckle matchups with names as large as Canelo Álvarez and Terence Crawford, the kind of talk that signals he intends the move to be more than a one-off payday.
Part of a Bigger 2026 Pattern
Ortiz is not an outlier. Bare knuckle's talent pipeline in 2026 runs heavily on crossover credibility — decorated fighters from boxing and MMA choosing the format as a next step rather than a retirement. The clearest parallel is on the BKFC side, where former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski captured a bare-knuckle title, and where co-owner Conor McGregor's involvement has reshaped the promotion's mainstream profile and anchored a new FOX Nation tournament series.
The through-line: bare knuckle no longer has to manufacture its own stars from scratch. It can import them. A fighter with a world title, a Mayweather fight, and a Dancing With The Stars season on his résumé arrives with an audience already attached, and the promotion that signs him inherits that reach on day one.
What to Watch
The open questions are competitive rather than promotional. Bare knuckle rewards durability and power but punishes the hands — cuts open faster and fights end sooner without the padding gloved boxers rely on. Ortiz's aggression is a natural fit for the format; whether a body built on gloved-boxing timing adapts cleanly to the different range and rhythm of a bare-knuckle bout is the thing his debut will actually test.
What the signing already confirms is the direction of the sport. When a former WBC world champion calls bare knuckle "the next challenge" rather than a step down, the format has finished arguing about its legitimacy. The names are coming to it now.
