Bare Knuckle star Mike Perry is willing to fight any style, anywhere

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The actual discipline — traditional boxing, mixed-martial arts, bare-knuckle boxing — was pretty much all the same to Mike Perry.

One combat sports competitor alone on the mat against another one, both ready to knock each other out in the ultimate one-on-one skills contest. Kicking or no kicking, punches thrown with or without gloves. Didn’t really matter.

Perry tried the different disciplines, even rising to become a UFC headliner before leaving the premier mixed-martial arts promotion after his contract expired in 2021 for the largely unheard of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship. But it’s with BKFC that Perry quickly has turned into the main attraction.

An announced sellout crowd of 7,300 watch Perry knock out former BKFC champion Thiago Alves in just a minute on April 27 in Los Angeles.

Perry also faced Jake Paul in a boxing match July 20 in Tampa, Florida, but lost by technical knockout in the sixth round. He was a replacement for former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, who pulled out because of medical reasons.

Perry is hardly the only fighter who has competed in multiple disciplines. Many try different fields in order to find where they can be the most successful, eking out a living in hopes of six-figure paydays to come.

The options are numerous, whether it’s competing in boxing, MMA, bare-knuckle fighting or even the highly controversial slap fighting.

Perry has long had diverse tastes in combat sports, drawing early inspiration from watching YouTube videos of Tyson or ex-UFC champion Anderson Silva.

“I always had that dream as a kid to be a world-class fighter,” Perry said. “It was all the same to me. UFC was the biggest. It was the show that everybody knew, and I always wanted to make it there. I got there and it wasn’t as fancy as it looks on TV. I had to learn a lot of things, and fighting in that organization made me much tougher, much stronger, much better at fighting.”

But Perry never felt completely comfortable in the UFC. He relished trading blows more typical of a boxing ring rather than kicking or establishing a ground-and-pound strategy in the octagon.

Because he considered himself “a street fighter,” Perry was willing to use whatever tools he had at his disposal to succeed in the UFC. So if he needed to develop an effective ability to kick, then so be it.

He appeared on five pay-per-view cards beginning in 2016. Perry received bonuses twice each for best performance and best fight. He won four of his first five fights, but lost four of his last five.

A chance meeting in 2021 with BKFC founder David Feldman helped facilitate Perry’s move to that sport. Perry didn’t know who Feldman was when he showed up to watch a Paige VanZant news conference.

But Feldman knew who Perry was and told him he was in the wrong sport, a brash statement that at first made the fighter recoil. He didn’t, however, forget the discussion.

That talk with Feldman was the spark for his eventual move to bare knuckle.

“Everybody says I was made for this,” Perry said. “This was made for me.”

The training is similar to boxing in many ways. Perry spars with 16-ounce gloves, but unlike boxing, he has to find ways to strengthen his fists to avoid injury on fight night. He goes through a routine of pounding his knuckles followed by recovery so he can repeat the process the next day.

He has to be careful not to do too much damage to his fists because then Perry won’t have much left by the time he steps onto the mat for real.

Perry is the BKFC main event, and he’s paid like it, too. He received $600,000 for his defeat of Alves, according to the California State Athletic Commission. MMA Uncensored reported he made $1.3 million over 15 UFC fights.

“It’s kind of crazy, but I am the BKFC sport,” Perry said. “As long as I multiply, the sky’s the limit.”

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