by Dane McGuire

 

John Dodson has made it clear that despite a successful bare knuckle debut, he has not yet closed the door on MMA.

Dodson is fresh off a 40-second win against fellow UFC veteran Ryan Beniot at BKFC 28 late last month. The fight included three knockdowns to Beniot prior to the stoppage. Dodson and his younger brother Eric both celebrated that night as the heavyweight won in just 23 seconds.

“Well, I was going against my brother so I was trying to get a 20-second or less knockout cause my brother got a 23-second knockout,” Dodson said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com.

“I had a tough opponent, my dude kept getting up and I had to drop him four times. That’s just kudos to Ryan Benoit, he’s just one of those tough dangerous opponents.”

“The Magician” added, “I can return whenever they will allow me. It doesn’t matter if it’s BKFC or an MMA fight…I want to be able to bounce back and forth.Bare-knuckle has been so kind to me so I want to make sure I can keep growing in this sport as well. I want to have success in BKFC and in MMA, I want to branch out into different combat sports.”

Dodson’s release from the UFC came as a surprise as his contract had just been renewed an he was only one fight into the new deal.

Dodson told MMA Junkie in July:

“We just renewed,” Dodson told MMA Junkie. “I just renewed my contract and they were like, ‘Eh, you know what? You’re out.’ I was like, ‘What the hell? First fight in and I’m done? Wow. Thanks a lot, you guys.’

“I just figured I wasn’t the fit anymore. COVID happened. Of course, that’s a big factor in everything else that’s coming through. It’s hard for everyone to train and everything else that’s going on.

But if you really think about it, they can get a bunch of younger fighters who want to fight in the UFC who are – probably 10-8 new fighters with the paycheck they were paying me.”

Dodson did specify at the time that he was allowed to continue in MMA while a part of BKFC. “I still want to be bouncing around back and forth, and bareknuckle is going to give me the

opportunity to knock out as many flyweights as possible – and that’s what I want to do. I want to

go back down to flyweight and show everybody that I still reign supreme and the king of that division,” he said.