Mike Perry made a name for himself in the UFC, but he arguably became a star through his blistering performances as a bare-knuckle fighter in BKFC.<\/p>\n
From his six-round slugfest against Michael \u201cVenom\u201d Page to scoring dramatic wins over former UFC champions like Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez, Perry not only found a home in BKFC but he truly became the face of that sport while amassing a 6-0 record with four stoppages along the way. But it\u2019s been almost a year since Perry last stepped through those ropes to compete in BKFC with \u201cThe King of Violence\u201d most recently opting for a fight against Nate Diaz on the first MVP MMA card and now preparing for a showdown against always outspoken grappler Dillon Danis on Saturday in Florida.<\/p>\n
While BKFC president David Feldman has said repeatedly he expects Perry to eventually return to the promotion, his plans to book a highly anticipated fight against Darren Till has repeatedly faced delays. But for his part, retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown understands why Perry opted to hit the pause button on the Till fight in favor of booking a showdown in MMA against Danis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see Mike doing the bare-knuckle,\u201d Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cI think it\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s one of the few sports outside of the UFC that\u2019s legitimately exciting and cool to watch and I love what they\u2019re doing over there. I do think Mike is at a point in his career where because he made a name for [himself] in BKFC, you say superstar, might be throwing around that term a little loosely, but [he\u2019s] a big star, he\u2019s doing great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think fighting a Dillon Danis, he\u2019s just capitalizing on his name. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s getting paid a great amount for it. He\u2019s probably thinking this is going to be easier than doing a bare-knuckle fight. If he goes bare-knuckle, he\u2019s probably going to be fighting a Darren Till or some killer. Dillon Danis isn\u2019t really that hard of a fight for him outside of Dillon may catch him in a submission. That\u2019s really the risk you\u2019re running into with Dillon Danis. Other than that, I think he probably blasts Dillon Danis\u2019 f*cking head off.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to argue against the logic that Perry faces far less danger against Danis \u2014 a world class grappler with only three MMA fights on his resume \u2014 that going up against somebody like Till, who is a former UFC title challenger with a knockout in his BKFC debut not to mention a few impressive wins when he crossed over to boxing as well.<\/p>\n
Add to that, Perry is ultimately a prizefighter and Brown argues that all combat sports athletes should measure risk versus reward in any situation like this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s going to get a bag,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to make some money and I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll see him back in BKFC. He\u2019s going to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown also understands that Danis has transformed himself into one of the most talked about athletes thanks to his outlandish antics and constant presence stirring up trouble on social media. Like it or not, Brown says Danis gets people to watch what he\u2019s doing \u2014 even if the vast majority of the audience wants to see him get brutally knocked out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually get the play here,\u201d Brown explained. \u201cHe\u2019s a little late to the party because enough people have already beat up on Dillon Danis in the last few years. Nobody\u2019s going out expecting Dillon Danis to be a world beater.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he brings eyeballs, he brings attention. That\u2019s the world we live in. We\u2019re day-trading attention. That\u2019s what the currency of the world is now \u2014 getting attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Perry is going to be heavily favored to win on Saturday, Brown also understands the logic for Danis to take this fight and potentially change his career forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is his chance to really prove himself,\u201d Brown said about Danis. \u201cThis has to be his biggest MMA fight he\u2019s had. He hasn\u2019t fought anybody of any significance in MMA. This is his chance to show the world he\u2019s a good MMA fighter. When it\u2019s a guy that\u2019s got that kind of pressure and that kind of end game available to him, that\u2019s a dangerous guy. He\u2019s got to see that. Dillon\u2019s got to know, this is his chance to prove these motherf*ckers wrong. Shut everybody up. Find a way to beat to beat Mike Perry.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s Mike Perry. He\u2019s a tough, tough motherf*cker with big power, hard to take down, hard to hold down. If he\u2019s able to go take him down, put him into a submission, I think it\u2019s a great look for Dillon Danis.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a fight anybody has a chance and Brown understands the stakes, especially if Danis can pull off the upset, but truth be told, he just doesn\u2019t see that happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to pick Dillon Danis to win,\u201d Brown said with a laugh. \u201cI can tell you that much. But again, guys can be dangerous, it\u2019s MMA, anything can happen. It\u2019s crazy. I\u2019ll certainly be picking Mike Perry to win this fight and bring some eyeballs. It is kind of an interesting fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Perry made a name for himself in the UFC, but he arguably became a star through his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,32940,52367,786,1347,785,45518,1591,85],"class_list":["post-867994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bkfc","tag-bkfc-news","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-mmaf-podcast-network","tag-podcasts","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867994","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=867994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}