Luis Palomino wishes he ran into Conor McGregor at BKFC 41: ‘I would have snatched that belt off his shoulder’

As a two-division BKFC champion, Luis Palomino is usually front and center whenever the promotion puts on a big event but he really laments missing out on the most recent marquee card in April.

At BKFC 41 in Denver, Mike Perry defeated ex-UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold in the main event, which capped off a massive night for the organization. The attention only exploded afterwards when Perry asked for a faceoff with UFC superstar Conor McGregor, who happened to be in attendance that night.

McGregor obliged Perry by strutting into the ring with a BKFC championship belt on his shoulder before the fighters stared each other down for what was ultimately a friendly encounter. Palomino promises it wouldn’t have been nearly as cordial had he been in attendance that night.

“Good thing I wasn’t there,” Palomino told MMA Fighting. “It would have been a problem. I would have snatched that belt right off his shoulder. Who knows what else would have happened.”

McGregor’s appearance along with subsequent posts on social media as well as interviews where he admitted that he would like to compete in bare-knuckle one day in the future only helped continue the momentum that BKFC built that night.

While it seems highly unlikely that the UFC would ever allow McGregor to reach free agency, which would then open the door for an organization like BKFC to roll out the red carpet in an effort to try and sign him, Palomino would obviously welcome that opportunity.

He just didn’t like that McGregor trotted into the ring holding a BKFC title, which is something Palomino knows he earned through blood, sweat, tears and probably a few broken knuckles along the way.

“You don’t come into my organization, grab the belt and start wearing it and you haven’t even debuted over here,” Palomino said. “No, no, no. He’s going to face anybody if he ever competes. Everybody wants to come to what I call the dark side. I’m the one he’s got to see and I’m sure he wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

Even if a fight with McGregor might seem like a pipe dream, Palomino knows stranger things have happened.

Prior to 2017, no one believed that McGregor could actually manifest a boxing match against Floyd Mayweather but somehow it all came together and resulted in one of the biggest pay-per-view events of all time.

If McGregor seriously wanted to pursue a bare-knuckle fight, Palomino believes it’s possible and unlike some other UFC veterans who have backed down from his challenges recently, he doesn’t believe the Irish superstar would do the same.

“Everybody can say what they want about Conor but the dude is a warrior at the end of the day and he likes the challenge of fighting the best,” Palomino said. “That’s what separates him from the others. He would actually welcome that challenge of fighting the best and I am the best.

“If that fight was ever to happen, if Conor was ever to take off the gloves, that would happen 100 percent guaranteed.”