{"id":582990,"date":"2026-04-03T13:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582990\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T13:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T13:56:08","slug":"bkfc-boss-addresses-mike-perrys-future-after-taking-nate-diaz-fight-admits-matchup-would-be-much-bigger-in-bare-knuckle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/582990\/","title":{"rendered":"BKFC boss addresses Mike Perry\u2019s future after taking Nate Diaz fight, admits matchup would be much bigger in bare-knuckle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Perry has become the face of bare-knuckle fighting while amassing an undefeated record and a huge following since joining the roster at BKFC.<\/p>\n

But the former UFC welterweight previously put his BKFC career on hold to take a boxing match versus Jake Paul and now he\u2019s doing the same thing to return to MMA for a showdown against Nate Diaz as part of the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card on May 16. While there\u2019s no ill feelings towards the \u201cKing of Violence,\u201d BKFC president David Feldman admits the promotion had something big in the works for Perry when he decided to take the Diaz fight instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly we didn\u2019t have much to do with that at all,\u201d Feldman told MMA Fighting. \u201cI wish him the best of luck, I really do. These guys are going in there and risking their lives to make money and he\u2019s going to make money and I\u2019m happy for him there. But it wasn\u2019t something that we were involved in, and it didn\u2019t go down the way I wanted it to go down, to be quite frank.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Our relationships is] good. I wanted something different. I had something in the works, and they chose to do this instead, because they had the one out on it. They chose to do this instead. I had something really big planned, huge planned for them, and they chose to do this instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feldman had previously teased that he was working on a matchup for Perry that would have been \u201cthe biggest name that he ever fought times five\u201d <\/a>and it was just a matter of sorting out some details to officially book the fight.<\/p>\n

Obviously that didn\u2019t happen, because the Diaz fight came together instead, although Feldman says Perry initially wanted to do both but there was just no way that would have worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they wanted to do both, but timing wasn\u2019t going to allow both,\u201d Feldman said. \u201cIt is what it is. I wish him the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry previously revealed that he still has two fights remaining on his BKFC contract, but his main priority right now is preparing for the matchup against Diaz in May.<\/p>\n

As far as his future goes, Feldman expects Perry to eventually return to BKFC, although he couldn\u2019t even predict when that might happen. That said, Feldman is happy that Perry is getting a hefty payday because he understands that all prize fighters are operating on limited time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll probably see him back in BKFC,\u201d Feldman said. \u201cIt\u2019s all good. Again, he\u2019s never been disrespectful, he\u2019s never done anything bad to us, Mike himself, at all. He\u2019s always been very nice and very thankful, but at the end of the day, he\u2019s getting opportunities and he has to take them. It wasn\u2019t the way we wanted to do it. But it is what it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a good fight for him now. Fighting the Nate Diaz that he\u2019s getting now. I don\u2019t think five years ago, it\u2019s probably not a good fight for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because there\u2019s so many unknowns about the main event between Rousey and Carano considering they\u2019ve been out of action for a combined 27 years, and the co-main event features a heavily favored Francis Ngannou taking on Philipe Lins, the fight between Perry and Diaz might actually be the most anticipated fight matchup on that entire card.<\/p>\n

But Feldman knows deep down as much as fans are excited to see Perry and Diaz throw down, he guarantees watching them clash in a bare-knuckle fight would have been dramatically bigger for everybody involved.<\/p>\n

\u201c100 percent better [in bare-knuckle],\u201d Feldman said. \u201cJust announcing it as a bare-knuckle fight, it would have got 10 times the hype that it got, and it got a lot of hype, don\u2019t get me wrong. It\u2019s different and people want to see it in bare-knuckle. That would have been it. You talk about a bloodbath, that was a bloodbath.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Perry has become the face of bare-knuckle fighting while amassing an undefeated record and a huge following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,32940,52367,786,1347,785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-582990","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582990","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=582990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}