After Jake Paul beat Mike Perry in their boxing match, there's a lot of questions about what that means for Perry's BKFC career.
In the aftermath of his TKO victory over Mike Perry, Jake Paul declared himself the new King of Violence.
Last weekend, Paul dominated Perry in their DAZN pay-per-view main event, dropping him three times before the ultimate stoppage. There were moments when nostalgia or hope might have made one feel like Perry was en route to a miraculous comeback and would simply outlast Paul, but in truth, the fight was never competitive at all, not unlike any of Paul’s other outings against ex or current MMA fighters.
It was a thudding end to a nice run for BKFC in the mainstream media, as its biggest star was enjoying coverage in every major outlet and dominating sports social media for a period of time.
Ultimately, it’s what should have been expected, even by the most fervent fans of bare knuckle. Just as gloved boxers don’t always succeed in bare knuckle, bare knuckle specialists going the other way and putting the gloves on also don’t succeed—and one might argue, would succeed far less often than the opposite. In the case of Perry, stylistically, his face-forward, hands down approach is simply self-sacrifice against a serious boxer. In bare knuckle, where a) fighters throw less than in gloved boxing out of preservation for their hands, b) where fighters don’t throw as hard because they don’t have gloves on, and c) where fights can boil down to a question of whose face holds up the longest, Perry’s brand of all-out aggression has been spectacularly successful. Against Paul, who is effectively a good club-level boxer at this point (a genuine compliment, given how and when he started), Perry was simply target practice.
As Perry revealed on Paul’s podcast this week, he suffered a broken rib in the “first ten seconds” of the bout, when Paul landed a body shot.
“My fighting style, it wasn't adding up in the match with you. It wasn't working, or you would change. You did everything you needed to do, or were supposed to do,” admitted Perry.
For those entrenched in the world of bare knuckle, this isn’t news, and likely doesn’t impact their view of Perry. The result of this fight is one they can compartmentalize and not dismiss a sport because one of its athletes didn’t excel in a different sport. However, it is obviously an opportunity for BKFC and bare knuckle detractors to scoff at and dismiss it, just as boxing purists have done with mixed martial arts every time Paul thumps an ex-UFC star. Justified or not, it’s not exactly good press that the company is receiving at this point.
But Paul vs. Perry seems to have shaken the company in another, more direct way. Immediately following the bout, Conor McGregor, now a part-owner of BKFC, tweeted “Hey Mike youre released and you can go and compete in your smelly dirty boxing championship thing, the smell of it, good luck. You're fired.”
At the post-fight press conference, Perry responded. "He doesn’t fucking have a promotion because me and him are both owners of BKFC,” he said. “He can’t fire me. We can fight bare-knuckle. Look at me. I lost to Jake Paul. Why don’t you go fight Jake Paul and box him with the gloves on? I think it would be worse than Conor McGregor vs. Floyd Mayweather."
McGregor’s comments referenced Perry’s new Dirty Boxing Championship, a company he founded and announced the night before his bout with Paul. The company is somewhat of a hybrid between MMA and bare knuckle, more similar to the Triller hybrid fighting that Perry competed in against Michael Seals. Fighters will wear smaller gloves, can work in the clinch, and in some instances, on the mat as well. At the announcement, Perry stressed that he would still be able to fight in BKFC.
McGregor seemingly wants to change that, however, what power he has to do that is unclear. Perry has responded by saying that he too is a part-owner of the company, to which McGregor replied that Perry was a shareholder in Triller, which is a majority stake holder in the company.
In his appearance on Paul’s podcast, Perry dismissed McGregor’s threats altogether.
“I just think he does that. He tweets, and he gets people to attach to something,” said Perry. “Let's be honest. Everybody wants to see me fight bare knuckle again, you know.”
The reality is, there hasn’t been a formal announcement from BKFC, or more specifically, from David Feldman, about Perry being released. If he were to be released, it certainly wouldn’t be because he lost a gloved boxing match. If losing in gloved boxing triggered an immediate release, there are many other fighters on the roster who would be instantly let go. If there is an undercurrent of strife between Perry and the company, perhaps stemming from his Dirty Boxing announcement, that too hasn’t been supported by any evidence. Perry was and is still excitedly talking about his BKFC future, and it should be noted that all the way up until Perry’s loss to Paul, McGregor himself was boisterously promoting him.
What’s likely is that Perry’s hypothesis is correct, and Conor is simply being Conor. However, there’s a fantasy timeline where this perhaps results in a Perry vs. McGregor bare knuckle bout. For all those who thought that McGregor’s involvement with the company was simply a publicity stunt, well, if it is, it’s one he’s taking too seriously, if anything. He’s constantly discussing wanting to have a bare knuckle fight, and has already taken to “firing” fighters. His marriage with BKFC might be a turbulent one, but it’s real.
The other possible result of all of this? A Jake Paul appearance in BKFC. Paul’s brother Logan recently had a “closed door” bare knuckle fight with bodybuilding influencer Bradley Martyn, and Jake responded positively to Perry’s suggestion of him taking the leap himself.
“It could be fun. It's really crazy,” said Paul. “I'd be down to do bare knuckle.”
In the end, Perry’s appearance in a major event against Paul, even in a losing effort, may be a net positive for BKFC when it’s all said and done—provided that pink slip isn’t actually real, of course.
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