Mike Perry vs. Justin Gaethje in a bare-knuckle fight would be one of the most insane combat bouts someone could put together.<\/p>\n
Of course, Gaethje is once again UFC interim lightweight champion after defeating Paddy Pimblett in the main event of UFC 324 this past Saturday. Perry, who is preparing for his Dirty Boxing\u2019s next event, DBX 5 tonight in Houston, watched the matchup and truly enjoyed what both fighters brought to the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great fight,\u201d Perry told MMA Fighting. \u201cI even said [watching it], Paddy was showing great heart and will. He wanted to try harder, he just didn\u2019t have the tools that he needed to beat Gaethje. And it\u2019s interesting, I thought because, you know\u2026 I guess Chandler and Gaethje had a tougher fight versus Paddy vs. Chandler, but that\u2019s MMA math.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, Gaethje, I knew he had some tough stuff. I wasn\u2019t sure what type of Gaethje we would get, but when it came to those hands, his boxing is sharp, and he\u2019s a pretty strong striker, and he gets that interim title.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Perry\u2019s most recent BKFC bout, \u201cPlatinum\u201d stopped Jeremy Stephens via TKO in Round 5 to retain his King of Violence title and remain unbeaten in the promotion.<\/p>\n
Some of the criticism Perry says he\u2019s received is that he\u2019s fought fighters that are typically lightweights\u2014such as Stephens and Eddie Alvarez\u2014but also has wins over UFC welterweight Michael Page, who has two octagon bouts at middleweight, former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champ Luke Rockhold, and past UFC welterweight title challenger Thiago Alves.<\/p>\n
But after watching Gaethje compete against Pimblett, Perry couldn\u2019t help but be intrigued by what a BKFC matchup would look like between he and Gaethje.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wild, someone of Gaethje\u2019s talents, he\u2019s never made it all the way to the top, let alone me,\u201d Perry explained. I never got the interim, but I did get the King of Violence, so I\u2019ll take that, it\u2019s different. Who knows? Maybe if he doesn\u2019t go for that undisputed Mike Perry intrigued by bare-knuckle matchup with Justin Gaethje after UFC 324 win, jokes \u2018I don\u2019t want to pick on small people\u2019, depending if someone\u2019s going to vacate, then he would fight again for the undisputed title. Against whom, we\u2019re not sure. I know Arman\u2019s up there, things like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, you know, maybe Mike Perry vs. Justin Gaethje in bare-knuckle? Oh, he\u2019s [155]. I\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t want to pick on small people. I don\u2019t know, man. I\u2019ll be getting ready. I\u2019ll be getting prepared to fight this year, man. I\u2019m excited to do that. Gaethje and Paddy had an exciting show, and Paddy still had a good message after. People, just talk to somebody [if you\u2019re going through hard times]. That\u2019s good stuff. Life has enough pain, so you don\u2019t want people close to you taking themselves away.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Perry awaits his next opponent, he\u2019ll be taking his Dirty Boxing promotion to Houston for DBX 5, which is headlined by an inaugural women\u2019s bantamweight title fight between UFC veteran Jessica Rose-Clark and Paula Bittencourt.<\/p>\n
What likely awaits Gaethje is a unification bout with the undefeated Ilia Topuria, who became a two-division champ by capturing the lightweight title with a brutal first-round knockout off Charles Oliveira at UFC 317 this past June.<\/p>\n
Perry was asked how he sees Gaethje\u2019s chances in a matchup with Topuria.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, Ilia did come up [from featherweight], which means a little bit lighter fighter,\u201d Perry explained. \u201cAnything can happen. Either one of those guys could win. Gaethje could win, but Ilia has been sharp and I see all the memes, that they didn\u2019t want it to be Gaethje, and like it\u2019s videos of Ilia knocking out his opponents. Ilia is a sharp dude. He\u2019s got good power punches, good knockout power, and good wrestling and wrestling defense, so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like Gaethje\u2019s going to be trying to take him down, but Gaethje did have some defense to Paddy\u2019s grappling, I think that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t see Paddy grappling. Gaethje could keep the fight where he wanted it, just in boxing range. That\u2019s a good matchup though, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Perry vs. Justin Gaethje in a bare-knuckle fight would be one of the most insane combat bouts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[33307,42718,49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702,3194],"class_list":["post-443311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-bkfc","tag-bkfc-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}