Slaughter to Prevail’s Alex Terrible explains why he’s fighting for free and if upcoming bare-knuckle fight could be his last

Slaughter to Prevail singer Alex Terrible (real name Aleksandr Shikolay) has been asked numerous times about his decision to cross over into bare-knuckle fighting and truth be told he still doesn’t have a great answer.

The 32-year-old deathcore staple is set to compete in his fourth bare-knuckle fight at Blood4Blood — an idea one of his bandmates had about combining a fight card with a concert — which goes down on Wednesday ahead of the Welcome to Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Fla. Despite the massive success of his band, which is also in the middle of a worldwide tour that runs through October, Terrible can’t totally explain what drove him to fighting, especially since he had no background in combat sports or martial arts before deciding to test himself in a bare-knuckle brawl.

“I really don’t know,” Terrible said with a laugh when trying to explain his decision to fight when speaking to MMA Fighting. “Just because [my] heart wants this shit. Because with my mind, I cannot give an answer. It’s just because maybe I want competition and I just love combat sports.

“Maybe it’s just because of my inner fears, I want to fight. Something like that. I need therapy maybe, like a f*cking psychiatrist or some shit like that.”

If anybody needed further proof about his desire to fight, Terrible helped organize the Blood4Blood event, which features a total of four bare-knuckle bouts, and he’s not making any money despite competing in the main event.

Rather than take a paycheck for the fight, Terrible invested his own funds into the show to ensure the other fighters are being paid and he also partnered with BKFC to promote the event. But why not get paid for putting his health on the line in a bare-knuckle fight?

“Because I believe money shouldn’t be in the first place,” Terrible explained. “It should not be a priority. The priority for me is the art, is the main goal, is the concept, the business plan. It’s the business. We want to make a combination of metal and bare-knuckle boxing, to combine this and bring this to show people how fun it can be.

“If you’re a metal head and you go to see your favorite band is playing and then between the sets and you’re watching f*cking people fighting bare-knuckle, it’s just a high f*cking endorphins and all of this shit. It’s just a show. People always love to see a show and I love this concept. For me, if you want to earn some money, achieve something huge in business, you’ve got to f*cking sacrifice something. Because I love it, I can sacrifice it.”

He’s also taking a massive risk with a fight booked against bull-rider and bare-knuckle enthusiast Cameron Delano in the main event and then turning around and playing with his band that same night.

It might seem a little presumptuous that Terrible is going to be healthy enough to sing after engaging in a bare-knuckle brawl but he understands the stakes, especially with a lot of fans likely buying tickets to specifically see a Slaughter to Prevail concert in a more intimate setting than the festival kicking off one day later.

“I think I just very believe in myself,” Terrible said. “This is why I have this success and I achieve so much, because I believe in myself. But it’s not antiquated. Every time I believe in myself too much and sometimes I burn out. Sometimes I do mistakes. Sometimes everything I planned doesn’t work like I planned.

“I’m not scared of dreaming big, dreaming huge. So I want to make history. I want to perform before the fight and I want to perform after the fight. Even if I have damages and shit, maybe not as strong damages as I had before, I want to perform.”

The strong damages that Terrible is referencing came from his most recent foray into bare-knuckle fighting back in 2025 when he went toe-to-toe with Danil Aleev in a fight that took place in his native Russia.

While he survived to the final bell, he didn’t walk away unscathed as evidenced by the post-fight photo that showed off the injuries he suffered in that back-and-forth war. Looking back now, Terrible admits he probably bit off a little bit more than he could chew taking on an experienced veteran like Aleev but he didn’t stop him from wanting to do it all over again.

“For the last one, I didn’t have fun at all,” Terrible said. “Because it was a tough challenge and my nose came inward. All my face [around my nose] was just broken. My nose was broken very much. From the very first round, I cannot breathe and when you cannot breathe, your stamina gets f*cked. You cannot move proper.

“All of these people are watching, they don’t understand. They literally don’t get it. They will never get it. Even boxers or something like that, it’s just a very different sport. I didn’t have fun but for my future fights like on May 6, my goal is having fun, enjoy, be more relaxed and dancing and all this stuff.”

As much as he loves fighting, Terrible knows the peril he faces any time he sets foot in a ring or a cage to do battle with somebody else.

For the upcoming Blood4Blood card, he’s putting everything on the line to realize a vision he has for the future with hopes his new promotion could produce even more shows in the future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s going to be the one headlining these events.

In fact, Terrible confessed that his wife has already been hounding him to stick to singing rather than fighting and there’s no telling if Wednesday could potentially be his final appearance in bare-knuckle.

“I don’t know [if I’ll fight again] because my wife is very upset,” Terrible said. “She said ‘what the f*ck are you doing? Why are you wasting your health?’ and all of this stuff and you’re not young. I’m 32 years old. I’m not young. Maybe if I was 22 or some shit like that maybe.

“But right now of course, I need to be more careful and maybe next time, I will ask for a good paycheck and maybe it’s worth it. But I like the concept and maybe for the next time after this fight, maybe I will fight again and after that I’ll just bring more fighters from Russia or more fighters from BKFC or another organization and make superstars in our organization Blood4Blood.”

On top of everything else, Terrible plans to take a year off to work on the next Slaughter to Prevail album and that’s going to require him to step back from everything else while also spending more time with his family. The final Slaughter to Prevail show in 2026 is currently scheduled for October and then Terrible is going to start working on new music, which is always going to be his priority.

“I want to write more music and I want to spend more time with my family,” Terrible said. “We’re going to finish this summer tour in Europe and we’ll probably go back to the United States, maybe play a few shows in the United States and maybe we’ll got to South America and Mexico and then we will have a break for one year.

“I believe people will miss us and it creates more hype when we drop the new album. I really want to write good music and focus only on music and family.”