Paige VanZant and Rachael Ostovich have spoken out on their upcoming BKFC clash.
VanZant and Ostovich will collide this Friday night (July 23) at BKFC 19. The two have fought each other before. Back in January 2019, VanZant submitted Ostovich in the first UFC on ESPN+ card.
In a BKFC promo, VanZant said she’s well aware of why her fight with Ostovich will sell, but she promises violence (h/t RT).
“Going into this, it’s not a rematch because it’s a completely different style of fighting. It’s bare-knuckle boxing, it’s not MMA… I’m not scared of how hard she hits because I’ve been hit by her before.
“I think it’s a pretty easy sell, watching Rachel and I fight, come for the boobs, stay for the violence” when the bout was announced. We’re two people who have continuously been told we shouldn’t fight based on our looks. And obviously, we’re going in there to do the most violent sport on earth right now, which is bare-knuckle boxing.”
Ostovich said that she wasn’t herself going into her 2019 bout with VanZant after going through a domestic violence case with her ex-husband, Arnold Berdon.
“Honestly, I did not want to do bare-knuckle fighting. I thought it was brutal and crazy, and I still think all those things. But when they offered me to fight Paige, I was like ‘yeah, I wanna get that one back, I wanna come out on top this time, and show everyone I am the better fighter, especially in the stand-up game.’
“The last time we met in the UFC I did feel like I had the advantage and the edge in the stand-up. There was a lot of outside things going on, I went into that fight as a broken person, emotionally and physically.”
