Mike Perry was the talk of the town earlier today (Fri., Nov. 20, 2020) during UFC 255’s official weigh ins (replay HERE), as “Platinum” missed weight by 4.5 pounds for his welterweight clash with Tim Means.
Making matters worse were Perry’s comments on social media leading up to the weigh ins. Perry, who revealed earlier this week that he still had 20 pounds to cut, claimed that he was “dying” just hours before the official weigh ins. Fans knew “Platinum” was going to have issues making the 171-pound limit, but few felt bad given Perry’s lack of commitment in controlling his weight for this camp.
Perry, who will now forfeit 30 percent of his purse to Means, took to social media again following his botched weight cut to deliver a message to his fans.
“Got em right where I want em. Dirty bird is game. I came for a fight not the scale,” wrote Perry via Instagram.
Late Friday night, Perry spoke to Helen Yee Sports and offered an explanation about his inability to hit the welterweight benchmark.
“I don’t know, I just made the mistakes too late. I didn’t get dehydrated early enough, I thought I could just dehydrate late. Some people do it that way, I’ve always heard, some people cut the 15 (pounds) in one night. I tried to get 15 (pounds) off yesterday and all night,” Perry said. “When I was tweeting I just finished some exercise and couldn’t get no sweat going. I tried all the way up until 10:20 this morning. 2 a.m., 6 a.m., and 9 a.m., I kept trying and trying and only lost a pound or two in that time. So, it was just a broken record at that point. I was ready to rehydrate and I figured Tim Means would be grateful to get 30 percent and show up and fight.”
Perry, 29, is coming off a decision win over Mickey Gall back in June but has lost two of his last three trips to the Octagon. “Platinum” will have much to prove against a savvy veteran like Means as he tries to regain some steam heading into next year. Once again, Perry will have a limited corner behind him as he tries to navigate the fight game on his own.
UFC 255 will go down tomorrow night (Sat., Nov. 21, 2020) live on ESPN+ PPV from inside UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada. Perry vs. Means will be part of a main card featuring two titles defenses by UFC flyweight champions Deiveson Figueiredo and Valentina Shevchenko.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 255 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN+/ESPN2 “Prelims” undercard bouts at 6:30 p.m. ET, followed by the ESPN+ PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET.