Luke Rockhold has another fight booked in his post-UFC combat sports campaign.
The 39-year-old former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champion has signed with Karate Combat and is scheduled to make his KC debut against Joe Schilling on April 20 at 195lbs.
Both Rockhold and Schilling announced that they would be the taking part in the main event of Karate Combat 45 in Dubai on social media, with the bout later being confirmed by multiple media outlets.
Rockhold last fought in the UFC in August of 2022 in a crowd-pleasing unanimous decision loss to Paulo Costa before retiring in his post-fight speech. Luke would return to professional fighting and compete in April of 2023, taking on Mike Perry at BKFC 41, where he was TKO’d in the second round. Luke Rockhold also had a grappling match that was scheduled against grappling-ace, Craig Jones, for September of 2023 that was cancelled.
Luke, who has seemingly been in talks with KC for some period of time, will be looking for his first win in pro combat sports since September of 2017 against David Branch.
Joe Schilling is 4-6 as a pro in MMA and is a six-fight Bellator veteran. Joe is also a veteran of the Glory kickboxing promotion and sports a 23-9 pro kickboxing record having last competed in 2017. Schilling, now 40 years old, last fought in 2019, when he was KO’d by Tony Johnson at Bellator 229.
Schilling has had two fights cancelled since he was last in action nearly five years ago.
