Chris Leben isn’t the only fighter who has taken issue with Bas Rutten over the World Bare Knuckle Fighting Federation (WBKFF) debacle.
Hendricks competed on the first and only WBKFF card, taking on Dakota Cochrane. Hendricks lost the bout via second-round TKO. Little did Hendricks know that the defeat would be the least of his troubles. Like many other fighters on that card, Hendricks was not paid.
Hendricks Questions Rutten’s Role In WBKFF Scandal
Hendricks appeared on Bloody Elbow‘s “Pull No Punches” podcast. On the podcast, Hendricks said that Rutten, who served as the promotion’s president, deserves some of the blame:
“Dude, why didn’t you tell us? He had to have known something. He had to have. Was he sitting here thinking along the same line as that guy… Why hasn’t he said anything? It sucks, the whole aspect of it.”
Hendricks went on to take aim at WBKFF owner Tom Stankiewicz:
“I don’t know what the hell is going on. I was going to back out whenever [Brennan Ward] backed out. Tom calls me giving me all these excuses. He’s telling me all this other bull crap. I said, ‘hey, pay me up front, pay me a check. — that was stupid of me, right — so he writes me a check.
“Next thing I know I come home and he tells me, ‘hey, don’t cash it until Friday.’ I went to cash it and it bounced. At that point I call him up. For three months I’m sitting here trying to figure out what’s going on,” he continued. “At this point if I saw him, I’d be very pissed off. I think he knows not to show his face around and the lawsuit, yes, that’s something I can’t wait for. I’ve thought about hiring my own [lawyer] to go after him. Right now, I’m focused on clearing my head of everything and coaching my fighters.”
Stankiewicz was sentenced to one year in prison for wire fraud in a separate federal case. The issue that fighters on the WBKFF card have with Rutten is that they believe he knew the competitors were either getting paid late or not at all.
