According to Mike Perry, former UFC standout Darren Till turned down seven figures to toe the line with him.
Since making the move from the Octagon to the squared circle in 2022, ‘Platinum’ went from a middling welterweight to a bonafide bare-knuckle star under the BKFC banner. In his relatively short time with the promotion, Perry has already faced a who’s who of combat sports stars including Michael ‘Venom’ Page, Luke Rockhold, and Eddie Alvarez.
Gearing up for a return to the ring in 2024, all signs pointed toward Perry finally throwing hands with longtime rival Darren Till. Both men have traded shots back and forth in interviews and over social media for the past few years, and with neither being bound to a restrictive UFC contract, their clash seemed inevitable.
According to BKFC president David Feldman, the promotion had met Till’s financial needs during negotiations, but ‘The Gorilla’ ultimately declined to sign on the dotted line.
“I heard he said no to over $2 million dollars,” Perry said on the latest episode of The MMA Hour. “Darren’s just yapping away over there.”
According to Perry, Till would prefer their fight to be a traditional boxing match rather than a bare-knuckle brawl, and seemingly no amount of money is going to change his mind.
“What’s he doing? What is he doing? I know they gave him a hell of an offer,” Perry said. “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.”
Mike Perry is open to a traditional boxing match with Darren till
Mike Perry hasn’t completely closed the door on a boxing match with Till once his scheduled scrap at KnuckleMania 4 is in the books, so long as it makes sense for him financially.
“A lot of guys say they wanna do it with boxing gloves or gloves of some kind,” he said. “Those fights will happen in the future. A big part of the [BKFC] contract is I can do other things as well, and if the right money, and it has to be right because I’m being paid very handsomely.”
On April 27, Perry will look to add another name to his hit list when he meets former BKFC champion Thiago Alves at the promotion’s fourth annual KnuckleMania event in Los Angeles.
Check out Mike Perry’s full appearance on The MMA Hour below: