Eddie Alvarez praised Mike Perry for his victory in their bout at BKFC 56 last weekend. Part of that includes his admission that he underestimated the situation, saying he thought he could handle the “f*cking battle axe” Perry.
The bout between the two only lasted for two rounds. Both fighters traded shots, but Perry’s punches apparently made more impact on Alvarez, who had to talk with his cornermen by the end of the second round due to his swollen left eye. This pushed the team to quit the fight, leading Perry to be crowned the “King of Violence.” As for Alvarez, the defeat led him to a new reflection about BKFC.
“This is not for the athletes,” Alvarez said at the BKFC 56 post-event news conference. “You can get away with being an athlete in MMA. You can get away with being an athlete in boxing. You need to be a fighter to be in bare-knuckle.”
Aside from the hardcore nature of the bare-knuckle boxing sport, Alvarez also acknowledged his miscalculations in handling Perry. In line with that, Alvarez admitted that he had given everything he could, but his blows were not enough. In the end, “The Underground King” bowed down to the King of Violence, whom he praised for his success.
“Tonight, I dared to be great,” Alvarez shared. “I went up a weight class with Mike. I did. I really dared to be great. And I thought, with everything in me, I could beat a bigger guy given my skill set, given his style. I’m not going back on anything. I thought I could beat Mike Perry tonight, bigger or not. And I didn’t. I came up short. …
“With a bare fist, I thought for sure Mike would go down. He didn’t. My hat’s off to Mike Perry. The guy’s a f*cking battle axe. He can take a shot. He can keep plodding forward and give them. He reminds me of myself a lot. I was fighting a little mirror of myself in there tonight, and Mike was the better man.”
Perry, however, feels slightly disappointed with how the fight went. Despite winning, the victor shared his thirst for a full battle from Round 1 to 5, pushing him to make his callout for Anthony Pettis.
“There was three more rounds in regulation and not to mention the sudden death,” said Perry. “I live for this s***. I want all of it. I want somebody just like me, who can meet me in the middle for five two-minute rounds.
“I want a fight that’s going to give me those five f****** rounds of hell. It’s easy to talk but I just did it and I was just warming up. Four minutes, I was just getting started. There was six more minutes of hell I had to bring out. I was ready, I was just getting going.”
