Mike Perry leaves BKFC for MMA, says he won't go back for at least two years

Mike Perry is leaving Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship to fight in MMA. He confirmed it on The Ariel Helwani Show on Tuesday, Oct. 20, as Uncrowned reported. He said he won't return to BKFC for at least two years. He wouldn't say which promotion he'll fight for, and no opponent or date has been announced.

"It's good to get that out. I kind of had some feelings about it," Perry told Helwani. He called it a new challenge:

"That bare-knuckle stuff is like a cheat code, I guess. Those two-minute rounds, I was good at it. It was fun. I made some noise doing it, and I'm ready for another challenge."

He didn't rule out a return to bare-knuckle later. "Just a couple years, at least I won't be going back," he said.

BKFC's president had already hinted at it. Speaking in Newark before a BKFC event, David Feldman was asked whether Perry's next fight would be with the promotion. "I don't think so... I think he's doing something else. And that's okay," he said, in comments reported by EssentiallySports on Sunday, Oct. 18. "We're in talks, but I think they're going to have some news pretty soon about where he's going," Feldman added.

What he leaves behind

Perry, 35, is 6-0 in BKFC and was its first "King of Violence" champion, according to his BKFC profile. He beat Julian Lane, Michael "Venom" Page, Luke Rockhold, Eddie Alvarez and Thiago Alves. His last BKFC fight was a win over Jeremy Stephens at BKFC 82 in Newark in October 2025.

In MMA he is 15-9, per Wikipedia). He went 7-8 in the UFC and left in 2021 when his contract ran out, Sherdog notes.

A win, then a hard loss

On May 16 he beat Nate Diaz at MVP MMA 1 in Inglewood, California. The fight was stopped after the second round with Diaz too badly cut to continue, Cageside Press reported. Diaz asked for a rematch right away, but nothing has been agreed.

In late August, Perry lost to Brandon Jenkins at Duel Arena 1 in Orlando. He was stopped in the first round by a body kick and punches, according to Heavy. Jenkins, 0-2 in the UFC, took the fight on about a day's notice after Dillon Danis pulled out injured. Perry closed at -900. MMA Sucka reported that his purse was cut in half when Danis withdrew.

Perry dislocated his shoulder early in that fight and has a partial labral tear. The reports on surgery don't agree: Uncrowned says his doctors don't think he needs it, while MiddleEasy says he got a differing opinion. He is easing back into sparring. "It was hard to go through, I guess. I'm doing OK," he told Uncrowned.

What comes next

His contract status is unclear. EssentiallySports, citing unnamed reports, says he has two fights left on his BKFC deal. Feldman says the two sides are in talks, but neither Perry nor BKFC has said on the record whether he is free to sign elsewhere.

After the Diaz win, Perry said he'd like to fight Jake Paul in MMA or Conor McGregor, POST Wrestling reported. Darren Till has long been linked to him but refused bare-knuckle rules. "I'm not busting my face up at 31," he told LowKick MMA in July 2024, though he offered to box him. EssentiallySports says a 2027 Till fight has been discussed but not agreed.

Our fighter page has closing odds for only his last three UFC fights, from 2020 and 2021. He beat Mickey Gall at -286, then lost to Tim Means at -110 and Daniel Rodriguez at +110. That's 1-2 and down 1.65 units, a small and dated sample that says little about him now.

We think the shoulder is a bigger question than the promotion. Perry fights by trading heavy shots, and the reports don't yet agree on whether the injury needs surgery. He has a follow-up appointment in November.