Jimmie Rivera continues to excel in bare-knuckle.
On Saturday night, Rivera returned to Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, taking on Brandon Meyer in the co-main event of BKFC 95 in Newark. It’s Rivera’s seventh fight in the BKFC ring, and though he scored his first stoppage win in the promotion last October, this time he did one better, delivering a brutal one-punch faceplant KO in the fourth round.
A New Jersey native, Rivera is also a full-time police officer, and akin to the Luis Hernandez vs. Sedriques Dumas fight at UFC 121, BKFC booked him against Meyer, a man who spent 12 years in prison, with Rivera even joking before that Meyer gets to beat him up without being arrested. But that isn’t exactly how it played out; in the fourth round of their fight, Rivera backed Meyer up to the ropes and unloaded with a picture-perfect left hook that sent Meyer crashing to the canvas.
A former UFC and Bellator fighter, Rivera has not competed in MMA since 2021, after a loss to Pedro Munhoz at UFC Fight Night 186. He is now 4-2-1 in BKFC.