Dustin Pague prepares to unseat Julian Lane from the BKFC welterweight throne and aims to do so in the promotion’s first card of 2026. Julian Lane has had an interesting story in his broader combat sports journey and has fought the cream of the crop in the world of Bare Knuckle.
After eventually finding his footing a little bit and now riding a lengthy winning streak leading into bout, and when asked for his thoughts on what Lane presents both in terms of overall resume and the X’s and O’s of some of his better skills in the ring, Dustin Pague said [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“Yeah, I’m a fan of Julian Lane. He’s a tough dude. He’s mean. He’s a bulldog. He’s exciting to watch fight. He had a tough road in the BKFC. I mean his record doesn’t really speak [to] the volume of talent that he has because, you know, all his losses are to animals, tough, tough opponents. Mike Perry, Leonard Garcia, Jim Alers, like all tough guys that he lost to and they were wars. So, you can’t take anything away from him. He’s a very tough fighter.”
“He likes to come forward and and like he says, he likes to bang. ‘Let Me Bang’ Lane. So the guy likes to throw fists and take punches to give punches. That’s what I love about this fight. I’m more of a technical fighter than he is, I believe. But I love banging, too. You know, I love rooting my feet and throwing hard punches and putting people to sleep. So, it’s going to be a very exciting fight and I think it’s a good matchup for me.”
Dustin Pague keen to show he is “well-versed in all areas of fighting” during BKFC title bout
With Julian Lane’s infamous mantra from his tenure on The Ultimate Fighter being “Let Me Bang”, Pague definitely fits within that. But Pague is also someone who has the technical acumen to take the fight in that direction as well. When asked about fighting methodologies and the ability to shift into different gears depending on where the fight goes, Dustin Pague stated [via Bare Knuckle Bowker],
“Yeah, absolutely. I think you got to be well versed in all areas of fighting. Whether it be sticking tight in the pocket and throwing bombs, but also having that ability to to slip, move, and be hard to hit. A lot of angles and movement. So, I think I got a good mix of both of those.”