Mike Perry confused by Jeremy Stephens’ callout following UFC Des Moines booking

Mike Perry is puzzled by Jeremy Stephens’ request for a fight between the two.

Stephens has been enjoying a bit of a career resurgence, much in the way that Perry has. The two have made waves under the BKFC banner. More recently, Stephens stopped Eddie Alvarez at KnuckleMania V. He is now set to make his return to the UFC against Mason Jones on May 3.

Despite his UFC return, Stephens insists he wants to throw down with Perry. “Platinum” doesn’t believe the circumstances Stephens wants for the fight make sense.

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Mike Perry on Jeremy Stephens’ Request for Fight

Mike Perry currently competes at both middleweight and light heavyweight. He told MMAFighting that he isn’t keen on cutting down to fight Jeremy Stephens.

“These guys, man,” Perry told MMA Fighting. “These little guys want to call me out and be like, ‘Cut down to 165 or 170 pounds.’ Jeremy even said it on the JAXXON podcast, he’s like, make him cut to 170, and then put the weight clauses on [so] that I can only gain 10 percent after I weigh in. So that means I wouldn’t be allowed to get over 190 after weighing in at 170 — if I can even make 170 after I just had a fight, I tried to make 200.

“I think 185 is a great weight class for me. There’s a lot of action at that weight class. If you want me to face a certain type of striker, I need that weight under me to put the pressure on them and hit them hard with these little hands, man, like I did to the other guys at 185. I mean, I took the bare the best bare knuckle boxer there was prior to myself being Thiago Alves. He comes back for the fight after had a couple of bare knuckle [wins], but we had never seen anyone dominate him.”

Perry’s next BKFC fight hasn’t been confirmed at this time. He last fought under the promotion at KnuckleMania IV on April 27, 2024. Over the past year, Perry has had some beef with BKFC minority owner Conor McGregor. At one point, McGregor even claimed Perry was gone from the promotion. David Feldman has since said that Perry remains with BKFC.