White In No Hurry To Cut ‘Fun’ Perry

Another weekend of fisticuffs has come and gone as UFC 255 blew the roof off UFC APEX last Sat. night (Nov. 21, 2020) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Plenty of fighters were left feeling the post-fight blues, including Alex Perez, who suffered a first-round submission loss at the hands of defending flyweight champion, Deiveson Figueiredo (see it here).

And Jennifer Maia, who despite putting up a valiant effort against Valentina Shevchenko, came up short against the women’s flyweight titleholder. But which fighter is suffering from the worst post-fight hangover, now a few days removed from the show?

Mike Perry.

“Platinum’s” fight week didn’t start off on the right foot. Days before the fight, Perry revealed that he intended to drop nearly 20 pounds in just a few days. It wasn’t exactly anything new, as several fighters have cut as much — if not more — weight in a short amount of time and have hit their marks.

The only difference is they were not eating pizza and burgers the week of the fight like Perry was.

In the end, Perry’s weight cut plan backfired on him, as he came in a whopping five pounds over the welterweight limit, costing him 30 percent of his purse. In the fight, “Platinum” was out-classed by the much more technical “Dirty Bird” on the feet, who utilized his reach advantage to perfection and punished Perry with his jab all night long, which was more than enough to earn a unanimous decision win on the judges’ scorecards.

The loss was Perry’s third in his last four bouts, bringing his record to 4-6 in his last 10 outings and 7-7 overall inside the Octagon. To make matters worse, Perry didn’t seem too apologetic after his scale fail. In his defense, it’s the only time he’s ever failed to make weight, but that still doesn’t make up for his unprofessionalism.

Not even close.

The bruising brawler had quite a rollercoaster year outside of the cage. Not only was he caught on tape leveling an older man at a restaurant in Lubbock, Texas, his ex-wife levied some serious domestic abuse allegations toward him. When you couple that with his botched weight cut and his recent losses, it makes you wonder how much longer the promotion will keep him around.

“He’s always tough and fun to watch,” promotion president Dana White told the media after UFC 255. “What I really like about Mike Perry … he tried to win that fight. He’s fun to watch. I dunno what it means or where he goes after (UFC 255) but he’s a fun fighter.”

Perry is never in a boring fight, I will give him that, but at the end of the day his run inside the Octagon hasn’t been the best. It’s obvious the promotion thinks highly of Perry or else they wouldn’t be booking him for fights despite all of his out-of-the cage drama. Even when they did try to discipline him, it seems the company was in a real hurry to get him back inside the cage.

It’s safe to say Perry will still keep his spot on the UFC roster for now, but one more bad defeat could force the promotion to rethink its partnership with the welterweight slugger. That being said, a fight against Diego Sanchez would be intriguing (I can’t believe I just said that). Both men are in desperate need of a win, both are attracted to slugfests and both are two of the most unique personalities in the game today.

Any objections?