With Mike Tyson out of his boxing match with Jake Paul, former UFC fighter Mike Perry will now go up against the YouTuber instead on July 20th.
The 32-year-old Perry had a five-year run in the UFC between 2016 and 2021, and though he only managed a 7-8 run during that period he did make a name for himself thanks to his love of brawling inside the Octagon and often controversial antics and run-ins with the law outside of it.
Perry left the UFC in 2021 after losing four of his previous five fights, but he then found a new home with Bareknuckle fighting promotion BKFC and that’s proven to be a good fit for him, going 5-0 so far.
Along the way he’s beaten some high-profile fighters, including a majority decision win over Michael ‘Venom’ Page, a TKO victory over former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold (breaking one of his teeth along the way), TKO’ing former UFC lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez and most recently sending Thiago Alves into retirement with a 60 second TKO finish.
Now Perry lands the highest profile opportunity of his career, and this time it will be under boxing rules rather than the bareknuckle bouts he’s become accustomed to.
He’ll be facing the 27-year-old Paul, who first made a name for himself as one of YouTube’s biggest stars, but he’s since leveraged that into becoming a professional boxing star, with a 9-1 record so far, that includes previous wins over aging MMA fighters like Ben Askren, Tyron Woodley, Anderson Silva and Nate Diaz.
