Mike Perry is the king of bare-knuckle fighting but he\u2019s not opposed to returning to his roots in MMA, especially for the right opportunity.<\/p>\n
After dismantling Jeremy Stephens in the main event at BKFC 82 this past weekend, Perry addressed his future with several possible fights awaiting him in the future, including eventually facing Conor McGregor with no gloves on. There\u2019s also a long rumored matchup with Darren Till that seems interesting but Perry admits many of his biggest foes want to put conditions on facing him \u2014 most notably showing fear about throwing down in a bare-knuckle fight.<\/p>\n
But Perry\u2019s quick to point out that his first rise to fame came through MMA when he earned a reputation as one of the most exciting fighters on the entire UFC roster. In fact, Perry wouldn\u2019t mind having a reunion with the UFC for the right opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would do MMA. I would go back to MMA,\u201d Perry told MMA Fighting. \u201cI want to fight on the USA, UFC White House card. Who\u2019s more American than \u2018Platinum\u2019 Mike Perry? Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need a little training, healing time because that was 12 weeks [of a training camp]. That was 12 weeks of performance on Oct. 4. I\u2019ve got to get back in the flow of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perry has floated the idea about possibly returning to the UFC in the past but his desire to fight there again has never actually come to fruition.<\/p>\n
This time, the 34-year-old veteran believes the stakes for a card as big as the one happening on the White House lawn could lure him back for at least one more fight.<\/p>\n
In fact, Stephens returned for a single fight in the UFC when the promotion landed in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa before then booking his matchup against Perry this past weekend. Perry doesn\u2019t see why he couldn\u2019t do the same exact thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah that would be a cool one to do it on,\u201d Perry said about coming back to the UFC. \u201cY\u2019all got to pay me for that, too. But come on. Conor\u2019s talking about $100 million to get on the White House card. We\u2019ll give me a couple [million]. I\u2019ll be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest thing working against Perry is the name he\u2019s built for himself in BKFC where he\u2019s not only the face of the promotion, but he\u2019s become a household name thanks to putting on some of the most violent and entertaining bare-knuckle fights.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no better example of that than what Perry did in his return to BKFC this past weekend after spending nearly a year and a half away.<\/p>\n
Perry immediately engaged in a blistering back-and-forth exchange with Stephens that produced fireworks from the first second until the last. Obviously, he put on some instant classics when he was on the UFC roster as well, but it\u2019s tough to deny that Perry feels almost made for a bare-knuckle fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good to be back,\u201d Perry said about his BKFC return. \u201cI had a lot of fun in there. Jeremy was tough. He met the occasion. But he was too tough for his own good at times. Some people were saying like the Rocky movie \u2018throw the dang towel\u2019 after the second knockdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s props to Jeremy. Just happy to be back on the road of recovery and getting my health in order and get myself back on a diet and in shape.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perry admits there was actually a moment during that fight when he wondered why the referee was allowing Stephens to continue. The bout was eventually stopped after Stephens had suffered six knockdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came to a point where he was just looking for survival but he still landed the right hand all the way to the end,\u201d Perry said. \u201cThere was just no combinations from him. He couldn\u2019t two consecutive shots together. It would just be one big right hand. I don\u2019t know what the heck I was doing not getting out of the way of that thing more often but I guess it\u2019s easy when I just lift a shoulder, it doesn\u2019t bother me too much. I know that eventually that stance that I\u2019m holding is going to have them dipping into some stuff that they\u2019re not going to like.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of looked at the ref at the end and was like \u2018come on!\u2019 Like what do you want me to do? It\u2019s a very fitting \u2018King of Violence.\u2019 To win that fight was good. I think Jeremy\u2019s doing all right. I sent him a video, he sent me one back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coming off that win, Perry is keeping his options open, which includes his interest in the UFC White House card as well as another bare-knuckle fight in BKFC.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a matter of time until we find out what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Perry said. \u201cMr. [David] Feldman told me it\u2019s looking later [for BKFC] so I\u2019ve just got to work on myself right now, and I get to talk about the game. I get to stay in the polls, talking about combat sports, what\u2019s to come. There we go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Perry is the king of bare-knuckle fighting but he\u2019s not opposed to returning to his roots in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,32940,52367,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-203140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bkfc","11":"tag-bkfc-news","12":"tag-fighting","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-mma","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-ufc-news","18":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}