Mike Perry isn’t spending much time thinking about Darren Till these days, but he’s admittedly still confused about why that fight isn’t happening.
Perry has become must-see television since transitioning from MMA to emerge as the face of bare-knuckle boxing, where he now serves as the biggest star of BKFC. He’s engaged in back-to-back viral fights with ex-UFC champions Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez, but a showdown with Till seemed like the perfect matchup to make for his first fight in 2024.
Perry and Till have traded shots back and forth in interviews and over social media for the past few years, and with both men no longer in the UFC, a fight between them seemed to be inevitable. Unfortunately, BKFC president David Feldman said that after matching Till’s financial demands, the Liverpudlian ultimately decided that he wanted to take a boxing match or two before taking off the gloves to go to war with Perry.
While Feldman didn’t reveal how much the promotion offered for the fight, Perry claimed on The MMA Hour that Till said no to “over $2 million” to fight him.
“What’s he doing?” Perry told MMA Fighting when addressing Till. “What is he doing? I know they gave him a hell of an offer. Respect that you don’t care about that type of offer and you want what you want. When you want what you want, that’s respectable.
“But that’s one thing about BKFC too — at the end of the day, screw the gloves. Test yourself for real. Up against the bone. Skin and bone, baby, that’s what’s in there. Test yourself.”
For now, Perry sits just days away from a fight against UFC veteran and former BKFC champion Thiago Alves, which headlines the BKFC KnuckleMania IV card from Los Angeles on April 27.
Perry had no problem accepting Alves as an opponent, but he assumed Till would sign the dotted line until he got word that the one-time UFC title challenger turned down the offer.
For his part, Perry promises there’s really no bad blood from his side, although he doesn’t understand why Till continues sending him private messages about a possible fight.
“People want that fight to happen and it may happen,” Perry said. “He’s still talking. He jumps in my DMs, he’s out drinking with his buddies and he’s like, ‘You s*** house, blah, blah, blah,’ talking s***. I’m like, it’s a brick s*** house, boy. I’m here. I’m at the arena. I’m at the fight. I’ve got an event. I’m going to get this money and you’re out here trying to make things happen. Well, stop.
“We’re slaves to the fight game, that’s what we signed up for when we became fighters. If he wanted to fight me, I think he would have had the opportunity and the chance. What? He wants to fight me with the gloves on? He wants to fight somebody else with the pads on his hands? It’s all good. I think maybe after this we can make it happen.”
Perry doesn’t discount Till as a legitimate challenge, but he understands that there’s a lot of risk for anyone who faces him in a bare-knuckle fight with no prior experience in the sport. Rockhold found that out the hard way, losing a couple of teeth while fighting Perry in 2023.
To add to that, Till departed the UFC on a 1-5 run that culminated with three straight losses. A fourth straight loss — even in a bare-knuckle fight against Perry — wouldn’t exactly be confidence inspiring for the future.
Still, Perry acknowledges that Till deserves the praise he’s received over the years, but it remains to be seen if they’ll ever meet in the ring to settle their differences.
“Darren’s a good fighter,” Perry said. “Maybe even great. Because he point fought [Stephen] ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson to a decision victory. It was a close fight, but he won. He had a very close fight with Robert Whittaker. I thought it could have gone either way, but it didn’t go his way. Dricus du Plessis has proven himself and become the champion, and he’s obviously some type of strong that they haven’t seen at 185. It’s nothing to hang his head on.
“Maybe he’s just too busy having fun in life, just f****** around. I’m too busy trying to get this money while I can, while I’m strong, coming into the prime of my athletic career. I’m using my time as wisely as I possibly can to set myself up better.”
