EXCLUSIVE | Eight years ago Mike Perry realized his raw punching power during a bar brawl!
Eight years ago Mike Perry realized his raw punching power during a bar brawl!
UFC welterweight standout “Platinum” Mike Perry (11-3 MMA) is known for his raw punching power.
The 26-year-old has scored knockouts in all eleven of his career victories, including four devastating KO wins while fighting under the UFC banner.
Perry’s spectacular knockout victory over Jake Ellenberger at UFC Fight Night 108 in Nashville was considered to be one of the top three knockouts of the 2017 calendar year.
In an interview with BJPENN.com’s Chris Taylor, Mike Perry played the role of story teller when answering how he had initially discovered that he possessed raw punching power.
“Man, I got jumped one time in this club in downtown Orlando. Things started inside the club when this guy stepped through the crowd and he shoved me pretty hard. So I went back a little bit from the impact and then I walked up to him and said ‘What’s up man? What the f*ck!’ or whatever. So as I said that, and I said it loud, eight dudes were around the spot dancing and they all stopped and looked at me. So I was looking down the line and it was like slow motion and I was like ‘What y’all gonna do?’. Then, of course, one of them hit me Boom! But when he hit me I stayed on my feet. My head snapped back but I came right back at him like a boomerang. I put my hand on his neck and pushed him up against this wall and then swung at him with a right hand. At first I wasn’t even sure if I hit him cause I looked and was like where did he go? I thought he had dodged the punch or something. But he was actually down on the ground. I honestly didn’t even feel my hand hit him so I was a little shocked by that. Then I got grabbed. I think it was two people who grabbed me from behind. So when they grabbed me from behind I reached back and grabbed their shirts and used those to pull them in front of me. Then I ducked down and stepped back so that I was behind them. As they turned around I hit the one on the left with a right and the one on the right with a left and they fell over these ropes in to a VIP section. So I quickly turned around to see if there was anymore and sure enough there is this guy running at me and he is setting up to try and hit me with this haymaker. So I kicked him in the leg and went flying off to the side of me and landed on his hip because of his forward momentum. It felt like I was in a karate movie or something. And then I got grabbed again, this time from behind and over both of my arms. So I started jumping up and down trying to break free. I was finally able to break free and turn myself around and get my hand on the dudes neck. So I pushed him up against the wall and then I read security on his shirt. So I immediately took my hands off him and was like ‘Hey man he hit me first.’ Then another security guard came in and grabbed me by the neck and they both proceeded to drag me out the back door. And so once you’re out the back door it leads to this set of stairs. I was only 18 by the way when this incident took place. So I went down these stairs and called my friend on the phone and said ‘Hey man did you see that? They jumped me inside and I dropped like four of them out on the floor. It was tight.’ That was my word back then (tight).”
Amazingly that was just the appetizer as the brawls main course took place outside.
“So while I am on the phone with my buddy, I look back up the stairs at the club and there are so many people trying to come out the door that they were literally stuck in the double doorway. I mean this was a double doorway man and somehow people are stuck in there.” He said laughing. “Then from the top I see one guy point at me and scream ‘Get that white boy!’ So I told my friend on the phone ‘Yo, I am about to fight again. They are about to jump me in the back here and I’m not running so I am going to need some help.’ So I hung up the phone and put it in my pocket and I started walking slowly to the bottom of the stairs. When the first guy got to the bottom of the stairs I remember him saying ‘We are going to go to the car real quick and see about you funeral tomorrow.’ When he said that, I hadn’t even said anything to them yet so I just started cussing him out. I won’t even tell you the nasty things I was saying cause they were that bad. Obviously that pissed them off so they started getting right up on me so I retreated back towards this fence. There was a car right beside me on one side and then two free parking spaces and another car on the other side of me and then the fence behind me. So it was kind of like 300, where I had a little space to kind of draw them in, like they did to the Persians. There was seriously like 15-20 of these guys. Like so many man. Anyway, the first one that came up on me he threw this big ugly punch and I just leaned back and dodged it, then I kicked him in the leg and threw an uppercut that sent him crashing in to his friends. He was actually knocked right out cold and so that seemed to take away a little bit of the crowd. Then all of these guys attacked me with punches and so I just started ducking and throwing bombs back. I was getting hit all over my body and the top of my head but I remember my face was barely getting touched. I actually ended up with bruises on my back because I had to lean up against that fence in order to keep them from getting behind me. So I was fighting off of this fence and doing pretty well before I got hit with this big punch. The blow sent me down to one knee and I remember seeing this curb and I told myself, I remember this so vividly, ‘If you don’t get up they are going to kill you in this parking spot. They are going to curb stomp your head. You have to get up Mike!’. So I stood back up and all I could really do was try and block these punches. I would throw one of my own every now and then. Come to think of it what I really should have been throwing was nut-shots but I wasn’t thinking though. I didn’t know what to do so I just started screaming ‘You’re not going to stop me! None of you can stop me!’. It was then that I heard one of them say ‘Man we should get out of here before the cops show.’ And suddenly things started to clear up a bit. As I look up I see some of my friends are there now and a bunch of these other dudes are sleeping. They got to me (my friends) and were like ‘Come on Mike lets go lets go.’ So we started to disperse because we knew the cops were coming. As we were running down this alley I could hear gun shots being fired. So we started zigging and zagging from side to side hoping not to get shot. We were very lucky to get out of there with our lives man. My friend told me that when he first saw me outside of the club he couldn’t believe how many guys were coming at me. He said that so many guys were trying to hit me that they were actually hitting each other with strikes by accident.”
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