After earning a win over a professional boxer, Mike Perry feels a fight with Jake Paul would make perfect sense.
Before that can be a possibility, Perry is set to make his BKFC debut when he headlines Knucklemania 2 on Feb. 19 against Julian Lane, which takes place Saturday night at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla.
Paul just came off a devastating KO victory over Tyron Woodley at their December 2nd meeting. He is now undefeated in pro boxing. Prior to that fight, Perry revealed that Paul’s team invited him to spar. The timing was tough since Perry had just defeated Michael Seals at Triller Triad Combat in November, although if the offer was right, he might’ve found a way. It wasn’t, apparently.
“That week, when I was actually at the BKFC event, I had originally been hit up by Jake Paul’s team and they asked me to come to Puerto Rico and spar,” Perry told MMA Fighting. “I was gonna do it, but my managers — which are the same as Woodley — they kind of advised against that. I was gonna get $2,500 for it, and they were like, ‘Jake should be giving you $25,000 for what he’s gonna make in the fight if you want to spar him.’
“And then the real deal ender was I asked for two tickets to the event, and they were like, ‘Oh, we can’t get tickets.” Alright, then I can’t f*cking help you. Obviously he didn’t need the help, maybe he just wanted to beat on me. Although I wasn’t training I just had fought one week prior and was in a slight suspension. I still went to BKFC, where I fought Julian Lane without charge behind a guardrail. It was fate that I would punch somebody that week .”
.
Perry and Paul have sparred together before, which led to a social media back-and-forth between the two fighters. “Platinum” admitted that he wasn’t happy with the way he handled the situation, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t love the opportunity to face “The Problem Child” with the stakes as high as they can be.
“I want to fight Jake Paul,” Perry said. “I sparred him once, but he don’t want to fight me because you can hit me as hard as you want and I’m never gonna stop coming for you. And I’m gonna land shots, and I did land shots on Jake. When we sparred, I saw him run into shots. He did well in the first few rounds. He is longer and bigger than me and hit me in the first round with some shots — I almost wanted to be hit by those shots and to watch how Jake punches.
“He hit me, no follow-ups. He tried to hit me again. I made adjustments, and he ran into shots. I’m down for whatever, man. I’ll fight anybody.”
After Perry has finished his business with Lane at the BKFC ring and is now looking for an opponent in the next boxing ring appearance — or in the MMA cage — Paul would love to end all the speculation about sparring.
“Anytime, bro. Perry spoke of Paul as saying, “Any f*cking moment.” Perry said, “I’m ready [for it], I signed on a contract. I’m fighting Feb. 19, bare knuckle, and Jake Paul doesn’t want to fight no bare knuckle. If he wants to step in the bare-knuckle ring, the boxing ring, MMA, we can do anything. We can do a grappling match, a boxing match, we can fight anytime, anywhere.
” Everyone knows that I tell the truth. I’m down. We are down. I work hard, I’m in shape, I look good. I would get hit, but I like that sh*t. I’m kind of a freak. It’s a pleasure. It doesn’t matter how hard you hit me, I will get you. You can keep hitting me over and over and over, and I’m gonna keep making little adjustments, and I’m gonna catch you. It’s not going to be easy .”
.
