Stevie Ray opens up on his “devastating” exit from the UFC in 2020.

Scotland’s Sean Weir headlines BKFC’s debut event in Glasgow this Saturday at the OVO Hydro.

In the co-main event, Ray enters the bare-knuckle ring for the first time seven years on from his final outing inside the UFC Octagon.

While injuries were a factor in him parting ways with the promotion off the back of a win, he believes that there were other factors now that he’s been able to extend his career significantly.

What’s your price to do a bare-knuckle fight? 💰

Before you answer, take a look at Ste Wallwork's face after four minutes of fighting at BKFC 94. 🤮

Stevie Ray believes the UFC changed their mind on him by forcing him out after giving him a new deal

In October, 2019, Stevie Ray defeated Michael Johnson in a UFC co-main event and signed a new four-fight deal with the promotion.

He never received any money from this contract extension due to leaving the UFC that year.

In a recent interview with Bloody Elbow ahead of his BKFC debut, Ray recalled how the UFC booked him a fight in Las Vegas that he says they were well aware he’d have issues with due to his Visa.

He says that the promotion then brought up knee issues that he was dealing with despite him not wanting to part ways and being confident that he could fight through them.

“They kind of forced me to go as a free agent,” Ray recalled. “I had no choice. My manager told me that if I didn’t leave, they would cut me anyway and they would tell everybody else why they’ve cut me and then no other promotion would sign me.”

Ray previously told MMAUK that he’d heard from matchmaker Sean Shelby that it was a UFC doctor who suggested they should let the fighter go due to the severity of his injuries.

Scotland’s ‘Braveheart’ went on to add that he believes the real reason he was shown the door was due to a combination of his health and how much he’d be earning in his new deal.

“I think I was starting to get expensive. My contract was going up, they were paying me good money and they maybe looked at me like, ‘This guy’s not going to be fighting in five years time because of his knee injuries and he’s getting older.’ I don’t know. It was a bit s— because I had done a lot for the UFC.”

Despite his knee issues, Ray went on to compete seven more times in MMA after signing with the PFL, where he made it to the finals of their lightweight tournament in 2022 by beating Anthony Pettis twice.

Though he received what could have been the perfect send off by submitting Lewis Long in Glasgow with the Scottish Twister submission that he coined two years ago, Ray says that his BKFC debut isn’t a one-off.

He also isn’t ruling out the chances of taking more MMA fights in the future, proving that he would have comfortably been able to complete the four-fight deal that he signed with the UFC.