Mike Perry claims MMA fight against Dillon Danis in the works, close to finalizing Robbie Lawler in BKFC
Mike Perry is itching to get back into a fight. The face of bare-knuckle boxing has been absent from competition strapping his gloves back on for a boxing match against Jake Paul in July 2024, however Perry revealed Monday on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show" that there's a chance he'll stick with the gloves for his next professional appearance — albeit in an unexpected MMA return.
Following KSI's recent withdrawal from a scheduled March 29 boxing match against Dillon Danis, Perry, 33, claimed that KSI's Misfits Boxing promotion reached out to put together an MMA bout with Danis.
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"Dillon Danis wants to fight MMA," Perry said. "I'm saying yes, but we gotta see what [Misfits Boxing promoter] Mams [Taylor] is coming up with over there in Misfits.
"It looks like the date changed a little bit, might not be too far away. I might get in trouble for dropping that. Why not? Let's go, man. So I said yes to fighting Dillon Danis in MMA, but they gotta come correct. It's a last-minute call. If they want to make the fight happen, let's do it."
Perry's alleged offer comes as a surprise for multiple reasons, as Misfits historically hosts only boxing matches. Perry is unsure where a Danis matchup might occur, though the KSI bout was supposed to happen in London. Perry's last MMA fight resulted in a 2021 unanimous decision loss to Daniel Rodriguez under the UFC umbrella.
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Danis, meanwhile, must first worry about his own scheduled MMA return against Tony Ferguson in the Global Fight League (GFL) on May 25. If Danis were to fight Perry, the BKFC star could serve as a potential roadblock for that GFL debut, as Perry claimed the alleged bout is in talks for April.
"Maybe he doesn't want to risk that fight, and it depends on if BKFC wants to risk anything," Perry said. "You know Danis is going to try to grab my foot and I'm going to try to soccer kick him in the face, for sure. PRIDE rules, baby.
"Dillon wants it. Dillon's been wanting it and hasn't had a scrapper with four-ounce gloves, and I'll just stop them takedowns. He's going to have to pull guard and I got some ground-and-pound too, so let's do it."
Perry has been relatively active in BKFC since joining the roster in 2022. He's fought twice a year — except in 2024 — but appeared to create a brief rift with the bare-knuckle outlet after accepting the Paul boxing match and starting his own Dirty Boxing (DBX) fight promotion. Nonetheless, Perry insisted his relationship with BKFC remains intact and that each party is simply busy with several endeavors. BKFC co-owner Conor McGregor even vouched for Perry's return at a recent press conference.
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"There's options out there for me," Perry said. "Even Conor McGregor was saying, 'Mike Perry needs to come home,' and he said something about having a fight with me even at some point and he thinks it would be a great fight. That's not here right now. Obviously he's booked up with the UFC, they're using that, and I know BKFC has been working on something [for me]. An opponent may have said he needed 'X' amount of time. We're trying to see how much time that is today. A lot of questions were supposed to be answered about certain things, and then I got this random call yesterday — and it wasn't about DBX.
"If I could lock down a time frame, and it looks like I might be getting this last-minute call, which I said yes to, then it's just in the gym preparing, and nothing's going to take me out of that zone."
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As much as Perry would enjoy something out of the box, like a fantasy McGregor matchup, he's looking at the Irishman's recent comments as an indicator that a deal on his next fight will be made soon.
Perry has been poking at the idea of a BKFC match against former UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler since his last fight. "Platinum" believes the pairing will happen, ideally between June and November — even if a Danis fight in MMA does actually materialize for April.
"My [BKFC] contract, I still had three fights left that I would like to fight. I would like to fight those fights," Perry said. "And like I said, it has to make sense. The company's been ... working with other big companies. They have to speak with other companies sometimes in order to get the things they want done. So like I was saying, [McGregor] said that because maybe now you're about to see me come back.
"Everyone says it, the fans say it — you're not seeing it [in BKFC] the way that you do when 'Platinum' steps in there."
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