Conor McGregor appears to have gone back on his ‘firing’ of Mike Perry, and may even offer him the biggest fight in combat sports.
Following his knockout defeat to Jake Paul and the launch of his own Dirty Boxing Champioship promotion with Jon Jones, McGregor famously claimed he was booting Perry from BKFC. The former UFC welterweight is arguably bare knuckle boxing’s biggest star, and the move was a shock to fans.
However, the Irishman now claims that he has ‘love’ for Perry, and warmly invited him back to the squared circle for another fight. ‘Platinum’ has already landed scalps over the likes of Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez, and even got himself the Paul fight with gloves last summer.
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Conor McGregor performs dramatic U-Turn on Mike Perry
During a recent press conference for BKFC’s upcoming Florida event, Conor McGregor met with the media to discuss a number of topics. One that came up was the idea of fighting for the ‘King of Violence’ title, which is currently held by Perry.
He didn’t dismiss the idea, and even declared ‘love’ for his long-time rival saying: “Platinum’s doing the thing with the big soft gloves, what’s it called the dirty thing? It’s alright.
“Mike should come home, he still shows love to the game and we’ll always have love for Mike Perry for sure. And yeah, me and Mike would be a great fight for sure, 100 per cent.”
Conor McGregor ‘fired’ Mike Perry after Jake Paul defeat
This sort of language from McGregor is a drastic change from the way he wrote about him following his defeat to Paul last summer. Instead of helping to dust off one of BKFC’s best assets after a difficult knockout defeat, he immediately blasted him and ‘fired’ him from the company.
“Hey Mike you’re released,” he wrote to his millions of followers on X, formerly Twitter, in the early hours of the morning before quickly deleting. “And you can go and compete in your smelly dirty boxing championship thing, the smell of it, good luck. You’re fired.”
He later reiterated the claim, telling The Schmo a few months later:”Mike [Perry] is fired, but we’re in negotiations… We had to give him a little cherry-pick-made title, ‘The King of Violence’ or whatever you call it. But he was never a world champion.”
- Who is Mike Perry? Meet the BKFC superstar who took on Jake Paul in the boxing ring