There’s a golden rule in combat sports: there’s no shame in losing to the better man. That is unless the better man is Jake Paul — arguably the most hated figure in the fight world. Unfortunately for BKFC superstar Mike Perry, that’s exactly who handed him a brutal defeat in their boxing match on July 20 of last year. Not only did Paul beat Perry, but he dominated him. From the opening bell, ‘The Problem Child’ was in control, scoring knockdowns in each of the first two rounds before finishing the job with a knockout in the sixth. But according to ‘Platinum’, the story isn’t that simple.

Speaking on his Overdogs podcast, the fan-favorite brawler opened up about why he feels he didn’t get a fair shot against Paul — and why the loss doesn’t tell the full story. “When he knocked me down in the first and the second [rounds], those weren’t like– his positioning and his size and the length of his punch. That really did it but it wasn’t like damaging shots to the brain. It weren’t that. It just kind of knocked me over with his weight. And then I got up in the second round and I started taking that round. And my second and my third round in that fight we’re good,” ‘Platinum’ said.

Indeed, after two horrible rounds, Perry did make a strong comeback in the next one, even managing to open a cut on ‘The Problem Child’s left eye. But Paul was just too quick, big, and powerful for the BKFC superstar, who was on the receiving end by the fourth round. But Perry has claimed that there was another reason he lost in such a one-sided way. He got a serious injury in the very first round!

“But first punch in the fight he got my rib and my rib for four weeks after that fight, I couldn’t, like every time I got out of bed, it was a strain for me to move. He broke my rib. So I was dealing with that the whole fight and it started slowing me down in the fifth and the sixth. We gotta do it again Jake because you need to face the best version. I need more than three and a half weeks. Give me six to eight,” Perry added.

Indeed, Perry did that the Paul fight on short notice. Originally, Paul was set to face Mike Tyson on Netflix’s first-ever fight card, but ‘Iron Mike’ had to pull out about four weeks from their clash. Perry stepped up to save the card, but unfortunately, just wasn’t good enough to hang with Paul. But the former UFC star is sure that things would be different if he had a full camp.

And you know what, there is only one way to find out if Perry is right! A rematch with the former Disney star, which the BKFC star is desperate for. After all, the defeat against Paul led him to be publicly excoriated by one of the biggest names in the fight world.

The time Conor McGregor ‘fired’ Mike Perry for being knocked out by Jake Paul

Jake Paul has wanted to fight Conor McGregor ever since he embarked on his celebrity boxing career back in 2020. And in service of this goal, the celebrity boxer did something truly low. He insulted ‘Mystic Mac’s long-time partner and the mother of his four children Dee Devlin. The former Disney star called Devlin “a four” and told ‘The Notorious’ that he could “do a lot better.” Conor McGregor has hated people for far less! So, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he absolutely and utterly detests ‘The Problem Child.’

And seeing Perry, who is the face of the BKFC, of which the Irishman is a part-owner, absolutely infuriated the former UFC double champ. And you know what McGregor does when he is angry. He lashes out on social media. This is exactly what the Dubliner did after Paul humiliated Perry. The former double champ went on to ‘fire’ ‘Platinum’ for disgracing him and the BKFC.

“Hey Mike youre released and you can go and compete in your smelly dirty boxing championship thing. The smell of it, good luck. You’re fired. @bareknucklefc,” McGregor tweeted, referencing Dirty Boxing, the combat sports promotion founded by Perry and partly-owned by Jon Jones.

Like most of the things McGregor tweets in his fits of anger, his tweet was not well thought through. The fact is Perry is also a co-owner of the BKFC, just like ‘Mystic Mac’. And the decision to fire ‘Platinum’ was not up to McGregor anyway. But it just shows you how much of a reputational hit it was for Perry to be knocked out by Paul. No wonder he badly wants a rematch. What do you think about Mike Perry’s explanation for the Jake Paul loss?