BKFC 41 headliner Mike Perry spoke to TMZ in advance of his bout with Luke Rockhold in Denver. There’s no doubt that fans are interested in seeing the two UFC veterans collide in a bare-knuckle bout, in fact some fans are choosing bare knuckle boxing over MMA tonight.
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Mike Perry has lots of thoughts for Luke Rockhold
BKFC 41 will be former UFC middleweight champ Luke Rockhold’s boxing debut. (I guess he’s putting his modeling career on hold for a minute.) Rockhold’s UFC career finally sputtered out following a 2022 loss to Paulo Costa. Prior to that he tried fighting at light heavyweight in 2019 after a 2018 KO loss to Yoel Romero in an interim middleweight title fight. With all that in mind, Mike Perry is being extremely generous with his advice for the BKFC new comer.
“I’m looking to be ferocious and jump all over him quickly. Bareknuckle is not like normal boxing where the fight really starts around the 6th round. These are 5 to 6, 2-minute rounds. I’m gonna try to cut him up a lot and make him quit,” adding … “I’m gonna try to hurt him badly, quickly….Luke Out-Cold.”
Watch it here:
Rockhold has a plan to counter Perry: Mystery and surprise
Luke Rockhold laid out his plan to beat Perry at on the MMA Hour this week (video below) and it’s shrouded in mystery, “I’ve seen who you are and everyone knows what you bring to the table. You’ve been doing your thing for a while. You’ve been boxing. Yeah, it’s apparent you can box. You’re a little f****** dog and you like to come forward. No one’s ever seen me box. No one’s ever seen me isolated in this spectrum and no one’s ever seen me move like this. You don’t know what to expect. I know what to expect.”
Perry expects to solve the Rockhold riddle Saturday
For his part, Mike Perry doesn’t expect to be confused or surprised by Luke Rockhold’s boxing, “It’s a left or a right, it’s not that confusing. It’s a left or a right hand, footwork, some head movement. You’re southpaw, I’m orthodox. You’re rangy, I’m an inside fighter. It’s not that confusing. But it will be when I’m out there in front of you. I’m better than everybody who trained with. Every boxer you trained with for this, I’m better than them.”
The BKFC 41 odds show that betters tend to agree with Mike Perry, favoring him by a generous -255 and Rockhold is at +215, underdog country. Our own Eddie Mercado explained why:
“Rockhold hasn’t won a fight in six-years, and he was spectacularly knocked out by the likes of Jan Błachowicz, Yoel Romero, and Michael Bisping. To Luke’s credit, he did stand up to the firepower of Paulo Costa in a spirited loss in what was his final UFC fight in 2022. Rockhold will also be the bigger man out there, with Perry moving up to 185-pounds for this.”
Hopefully both fighters will be satisfied with their pay day tonight because it’s going to be hard-earned blood money without a doubt.
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