Melvin Guillard Signs With Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship

Controversial UFC veteran Melvin Guillard is back.

According to a report from My MMA News, the longtime UFC lightweight has signed with Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (NKFC). ‘The Young Assassin,’ who isn’t so young anymore, will battle fellow UFC vet Isaac Vallie-Flagg in his BKFC debut. The two will square off at August 10’s BKFC 7.

Guillard was last seen competing in the currently popular bare-knuckle arena. Fighting under British promotion BKB, Guillard went 2-2 in four bare-knuckle fights throughout 2017. However, his 2018 was marred by more legal troubles.

News broke in September 2018 that Guillard was facing multiple felony charges involving three alleged incidents. One was a domestic violence charge involving his girlfriend. He allegedly choked her in April 2018. The second and third were alleged assaults at Denver bars later that year. Guillard allegedly knocked out a patron working as a doorman at one bar, then knocked out multiple patrons at a brawl at another bar.

My MMA News reported he was arrested on six charges including two felonies but will serve two years probation as part of a plea bargain. Guillard reportedly avoided jail time for the arrests.

Guillard’s UFC tenure dates all the way back to 2005. He quickly became of the lightweight division’s most exciting and scary knockouts artists by 2010. However, Guillard’s career began to slide in 2011, as he won only three of his final 18 MMA bouts.
BKFC Debut

The 36-year-old “Assassin” will look to keep his combat sports career alive in BKFC. He’ll face Vallie-Flagg, who has two bare-knuckle boxing wins on his record. Vallie-Flagg was last seen winning at April’s highly-watched BKFC 5 from Biloxi, Mississippi. He previously competed in the washed-out WBKFF. His MMA career came to an end in 2016. Vallie-Flagg secured a subpar 1-3 record in the UFC from February 2013-November 2014.

BKFC 7 will also go down in Biloxi. In the main event, UFC veteran Leonard Garcia will take on another UFC veteran in Jim Alers. It will be more than interesting to see how BKFC will do after their last event headlined by their biggest-ever bout. There, Artem Lobov beat former boxing champion Paulie Malignaggi. But the fight was considered somewhat lackluster due to the hype and did poor numbers on pay-per-view.

Perhaps Guillard can add some excitement to the promotion.