Our “Spinning Back Clique” discusses Mike Perry’s rise in bareknuckle boxing, and which other MMA fighters would fare well without gloves.
[autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag] has found his lane.
Once a UFC welterweight who struggled to crack into the top tier of the division, Perry made the switch to bareknuckle boxing and began to thrive. His hard-nosed fight style is tailor-made for the gritty, bloody world of bareknuckle boxing. Certain fighters are willing to take one to give one, and “Platinum” Perry might be the shining example.
Through four fights under the BKFC banner, Perry has gone undefeated, knocking off MMA veterans Julian Lane and Michael Page. He then defeated a pair of former UFC champions Luke Rockhold, and most recently, Eddie Alvarez at BKFC 56 for the “King of Violence” title.
It’s clear Perry is a guy who will stand in pocket and trade until someone can no longer stand, which has led to success in bareknuckle boxing. Combined with his over-the-top personality, Perry has turned himself into a star for the BKFC brand.
When it comes to fight styles, which other fighters primarily competing in MMA could follow in Perry’s footsteps to make a successful transition to bareknuckle?
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Our “Spinning Back Clique” panelists Dan Tom, Matthew Wells, and Brian “Goze” Garcia discuss the MMA to bareknuckle boxing phenomenon with host “Gorgeous” George Garcia.
Check out their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss the most recent entire episode of “Spinning Back Clique” below on YouTube or in podcast form.
Ben Rothwell points to his track record in response to anyone questioning the circumstances around his fight-week withdrawal at BKFC 56.
[autotag]Ben Rothwell[/autotag] points to his track record in response to anyone questioning the circumstances surrounding his fight-week withdrawal at BKFC 56.
Rothwell was announced to be out of his scheduled heavyweight matchup with fellow former UFC heavyweight Todd Duffee this past Saturday just two days before the event. He came down with an illness early in the week, and despite trying to find a path to a quick recovery and the chance to compete, it simply wasn’t in the cards.
“Right now in my area of Wisconsin, we’re facing the highest cases of COVID and the flu ever,” Rothwell told MMA Junkie Radio. “Not just for the year, but ever. I got, not quite a 3-year-old, but a little baby. He does daycare. No blaming him, either, but everyone with children knows it increases your chances, so just doing our best to be healthy. I’ve been good, I’ve been doing awesome, and then Sunday night rolls around, he starts getting sick. I get worried; I panic. Monday, it’s starting to get worse. So I call my management, and we talked to Dave (Feldman) and they’re like, ‘Let’s just see. Maybe it passes.’ So we’re trying.
“Tuesday rolls around and I’m like, ‘We’ve got a problem.’ I was a wreck. All I know is on Tuesday we’re trying, and David Feldman’s like, ‘Here’s some options. Let’s try to do this and see if we can still make the fight.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I want to do it more than anything.’ This was all happening in the morning. By the afternoon it was like, there’s no way. We called it. All day Wednesday and Thursday I had the flu. I was laid out. No commission on the planet was going to OK me to fight in that condition anyway.”
As Rothwell sat at home trying to get himself physically right, Duffee attended the BKFC 56 pre-fight press conference and used the platform to trash his opponent. Duffee claimed Rothwell “lost to Thanksgiving” and ate too much to make weight for the fight, then also indicated Rothwell was weak for not fighting with COVID-19, which he claims to have done himself during the pandemic.
Rothwell, 42, didn’t take the comments personally or get upset with them but said everything to come out of Duffee’s mouth was quite outrageous.
“I know Todd made a comment about fighting with COVID,” Rothwell said. “I don’t know why he said that. Why would you say you knowingly fought with COVID? No you didn’t. And if you did, that sucks for your opponent. Not only do I want to fight at my best, obviously. I’ve fought with injuries. I’ve probably fought with colds before. But there’s just some things where it’s not going to work, then risking affecting everybody on the plane, everybody at the fight, all the BKFC staff. It just feels pretty selfish if you just knowingly subject everyone to that anyway, pretty irresponsible. I don’t do any of those things. And I wasn’t moving. Wednesday and Thursday, it was a mess.
“Todd Duffee made comments like, ‘Oh I lost to Thanksgiving with my weight.’ It’s hilarious. It’s like, dude, I have more than 50 fights, and I weighed in at 265 for those fights. I walk around big all the time. I’ve always cut weight. Everybody knows I’ve been doing this for a long time, always cut weight, and I made 265. This fight was at 275. That ain’t a f*cking problem, man. I’ll make the weight. But when you have the flu and you’re laid out sick, that doesn’t f*cking matter. I think he’s mostly just upset. I’ve been there too. I’ve been on both ends of this. I’ve had guys pull out not just a week out – I got on the scale, I weighed in and UFC officials came to me and go, ‘Yeah, your guy is out.’ So it’s like, I’ve been there.”
Rothwell admits he was “heartbroken” by the entire situation but thinks the fight with Duffee will be salvaged, potentially in February. He also expressed interest in facing newly crowned BKFC heavyweight champion Mick Terrill but said he will oblige to whichever direction BKFC brass want to take him.
“This is only the second time I’ve pulled out (in) 24 years, over 50 professional fights, only the second time I’ve pulled out with illness,” Rothwell said. “The other time was against Cro Cop in like my second UFC fight. Then I’ve had two injuries, one was my shoulder then something random over the years. That’s pretty good. If you look at all the fights I’ve got, I’ve still got a pretty good record of being there and showing up. So it just sucks. It was really bad timing.”
Eddie Alvarez was right when he said shortly after his bareknuckle fight with Mike Perry that his orbital was “smashed up.”
[autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] said shortly after his bareknuckle fight with Mike Perry that he believed his orbital was “smashed up” – and he was right.
Alvarez, a former UFC and Bellator champion, lost to Perry this past Saturday at BKFC 56 after his cornermen decided to stop the fight. They did so after the second round once Alvarez told them he was struggling with his vision.
On Monday, Alvarez shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) in which he confirmed suffering two fractures in his left orbital.
Confirmed 2 fractures in my left orbital , one was e refracture … Woulda been a thing of beauty to close out to the show for the fans , I felt great … this game is Wild and unpredictable as can be … it’s why I love it 👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼🔪🔪 The Show goes on ! Love you guys ❤️
Confirmed 2 fractures in my left orbital , one was e refracture … Woulda been a thing of beauty to close out to the show for the fans , I felt great … this game is Wild and unpredictable as can be … it’s why I love it 👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼🔪🔪 The Show goes on ! Love you guys ❤️
Perry and Alvarez went at it for only four minutes, but it was a hard-fought four minutes, with both men throwing everything they had at each other. Unfortunately for Alvarez, Perry walked through a lot of his punches and was relentless with his attack to claim the promotion’s inaugural “King of Violence” belt.
Now 1-1 in two BKFC appearances this year, Alvarez isn’t sure what comes next but said he plans to continue doing bareknuckle. He asked Perry for a rematch in his hometown of Philadelphia next year.
Mike Perry wants to meet Anthony Pettis in the bareknuckle boxing world.
It looks like [autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag] already has an idea for the next page of the bareknuckle chapter of his fighting career.
Perry suggested a fight against former UFC and WEC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis after his latest win inside the ring. Saturday in Colorado, Perry beat Eddie Alvarez by TKO when his corner stopped the fight in the BKFC 56 main event.
Wanting to continue his run against big former MMA legends, Perry sees Pettis as a fitting next step.
“One name that did come to mind that I did mention before I fought Alvarez was Anthony Pettis,” Perry said at the BKFC 56 post-fight press conference. “I think that’s an amazing fight.
“He just beat Roy Jones Jr. in a boxing match. I think he’s intrigued by the bareknuckle aspect. I had fun with Eddie, but it happened exactly how I said it was going to happen. I posted that Kimbo Slice picture of that backyard fight, and what did he say? ‘You have to hit me. Come on.’ Once he hit me, then I started moving, and he stopped hitting me and by the end of the second, what happened? He got busted up worse than I did.”
Pettis most recently fought in April, when he beat 54-year-old Jones by majority decision in a boxing match. Pettis is scheduled to fight in the main event of Karate Combat 43 on Dec. 15 against Benson Henderson, whom he has two MMA wins over – once for the WEC title and once for the UFC belt.
Perry suggested a fight against Pettis after he was called out by BKFC lightweight champion Luis Palomino – a callout he didn’t take seriously.
“I think that whoever the company wants to match me against needs to have a certain number of followers, of hits on social media, on the internet, that are going to get people to tune in,” Perry said. “It can’t just be one-sided. It can’t just be me selling the hell out of the fight. It can’t be that way. It has to be a two-sided affair.”
Sporting a busted left eye after spending four minutes in the ring with Mike Perry, Eddie Alvarez came to a realization at BKFC 56.
Sporting a busted left eye after spending four minutes in the ring with Mike Perry, [autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] came to a realization about bareknuckle boxing as a sport.
“This is not for the athletes,” Alvarez said during the BKFC 56 post-event news conference. “You can get away with being an athlete in MMA. You can get away with being an athlete in boxing. You need to be a fighter to be in bareknuckle.”
It’s understandable why Alvarez, a former UFC and Bellator champion, would reach that conclusion. He threw everything he had at Perry in their BKFC 56 headliner on Saturday night, but it wasn’t enough as Perry ate Alvarez’s best shots and, in turn, delivered plenty of his own.
The result? Alvarez’s corner stopped the fight because he was losing his vision out of his injured eye, giving Perry a second-round TKO win to claim the “King of Violence” title.
Alvarez isn’t exactly sure which punch did the damage that sealed his fate. He just knows he couldn’t continue without being able to see completely.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure when he landed the shot that he landed, but I remember maybe midway through the second, I felt my eye shutting and closing up on me,” Alvarez said. “Then when I sat down, I went to open my mouth a little bit, and I think my orbital is smashed up. I can’t see. With a guy like Mike, I think I was doing well when I was moving, but then I started getting into a firefight with him, and that’s not something you do with Mike Perry. It was foolish.”
That said, Alvarez wasn’t entirely disappointed with his performance.
“Tonight I dared to be great,” Alvarez said. “I went up a weight class with Mike. I did, I really dared to be great. And I thought, with everything in me, I could beat a bigger guy given my skill set, given his style. I’m not going back on anything. I thought I could beat Mike Perry tonight, bigger or not. And I didn’t. I came up short. …
“With a bare fist, I thought for sure Mike would go down. He didn’t. My hat’s off to Mike Perry. The guy’s a f*cking battle axe. He can take a shot. He can keep plodding forward and give them. He reminds me of myself a lot. I was fighting a little mirror of myself in there tonight, and Mike was the better man.”
Now 1-1 in two BKFC appearances this year, Alvarez isn’t sure what comes next but said he plans on continuing with BKFC.
Check out these photos highlighting the action from BKFC 56 headlined by Mike Perry’s TKO win over Eddie Alvarez.
Check out these photos highlighting the action from BKFC 56 headlined by [autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag]’s TKO win over Eddie Alvarez at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City. (Photos courtesy of BKFC)
Former UFC champion Eddie Alvarez might be “The Underground King,” but he’s no “King of Violence.” That title belongs to Mike Perry.
Former UFC champion [autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] might be “The Underground King,” but he’s no “King of Violence.” That title belongs to [autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag].
Perry proved his mettle in Saturday night’s BKFC 56 headliner as he took Alvarez’s punches like they were no big deal while delivering shot after shot to Alvarez, whose corner stopped the fight after the second round.
It was a fast-paced, brutal four minutes of action between Perry and Alvarez. After Round 2 ended, Alvarez had a heart-to-heart conversation with his cornermen and appeared to say he couldn’t see out of his swollen left eye. Without the doctor examining him, Alvarez’s corner decided that was enough.
Alvarez might’ve been discouraged by how the fight unfolded. He hit Perry with everything he had, which didn’t seem to faze the new “King of Violence.” Perry said in the buildup to BKFC 56 that he would march forward and put it on Alvarez, which is exactly what he did.
“I work on the head movement and sh*t, but the last fight went so easily, I just wanted to have a battle, so I let him get some shots off,” Perry said. … “Who owns combat sports now? The ‘King of Violence’ Platinum Mike Perry!”
Perry is now 4-0 in BKFC after wins over Julian Lane, Michael Page, Luke Rockhold, and now Alvarez. Since leaving the UFC in 2021, Perry has emerged as the face of BKFC.
Afterward, he called out the biggest name in the UFC to meet him inside the circle.
“Conor McGregor would be a great matchup,” Perry said. “I just beat somebody he fought for a world title. Who’s bigger than that, though? There’s nobody bigger than Conor McGregor except me?”
Perry and McGregor held a faceoff back in April after he finished Rockhold. BKFC president David Feldman has said it would be a “dream” if McGregor had a BKFC fight.
Who better for him to meet than the new “King of Violence”?
The combat sports community reacted to Mike Perry’s win over Eddie Alvarez at BKFC 56 to claim the “King of Violence” title.
[autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag] now has a belt to call himself the “King of Violence” after defeating former UFC champion [autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] in Saturday’s BKFC 56 main event.
After a strong build up to their bare knuckle boxing clash, Perry once again showed this world of combat is best suited for him. He busted up Alvarez’s eye to the point of a corner stoppage TKO to close the 175-pound contest, which took place at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City, and left with the “King of Violence” championship.
The fight community praised Perry for his efforts, and you can see the top social media reactions to his win over Alvarez below.
Follow along for live updates from BKFC 56 where former UFC standouts Mike Perry and Eddie Alvarez clash in the main event.
BKFC 56 took place Saturday, and you can catch the official results and watch a live stream of the prelims right here.
BKFC 56 went down at Maverik Center in Salt Lake City. The pay-per-view main card streamed on FITE and the BKFC app following prelims on MMA Junkie.
In the main event, the promotion’s first “King of Violence” champion was decided between as former UFC champion [autotag]Eddie Alvarez[/autotag] and former UFC standout [autotag]Mike Perry[/autotag]. Also on the card were three championship bouts, including the the co-main event as Christine Ferea put her women’s flyweight title on the line in a rematch with former UFC and Bellator fighter Bec Rawlings.
Here are the complete results for BKFC 56:
Mike Perry def. Eddie Alvarez via TKO (corner stoppage) – Round 2, 2:00
Champ Christine Ferea vs. Bec Rawlings – for women’s flyweight title
Champ Kai Stewart def. Howard Davis via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 48-47) – to retain featherweight title
Mick Terrill def. Arnold Adams via knockout – Round 4, 0:47; to win vacant heavyweight title
Jeremy Stephens def. Jimmie Rivera via doctor’s stoppage TKO – Round 3, 2:00
Ben Moa def. Bridger Bercier via doctor’s stoppage TKO – Round 3, 0:51
Erick Lozano def. Mike Jones via TKO – Round 3, 0:55
Christine Ferea left no doubt against Bec Rawlings at BKFC 56 then turned her attention to Cris Cyborg.
As much animosity as there has been between [autotag]Christine Ferea[/autotag] and [autotag]Bec Rawlings[/autotag], both women respect each other. And it showed during their rematch at BKFC 56.
In the end, Ferea was simply too good as she won a clean-sweep unanimous decision over Rawlings to retain her flyweight title in the BKFC 56 co-main event Saturday night in Salt Lake City. Roughly seven months after a second-round doctor’s stoppage win over Rawlings, Ferea earned three 50-45 scores from the judges.
Rawlings wasn’t without her successes landing punches, but they simply didn’t match up to Ferea’s power throughout the fight. Ferea also landed more strikes by a margin of 130-94, according to stats on the broadcast.
Afterward, Ferea turned her attention to reigning Bellator featherweight champion Cris Cyborg.
“Absolutely, she’s the one that I looked up to young in my career,” Ferea said. “And they say one day you have to fight the people that were kind of like your idol. I definitely want Cris Cyborg. I think I’ll mop her up in here.”
Cyborg, who’s long been discussed as a possible opponent for Kayla Harrison in PFL, has a Jan. 19 boxing match coming up against Kelsey Wickstrum.
