Mike Perry shows aftermath of breaking Luke Rockhold’s teeth with his fist at BKFC 41

Photos by Phil Lambert

Mike Perry needs antibiotics after his star-making turn at BKFC 41. But you should see the other guy.

Perry not only shattered Luke Rockhold’s front teeth at this past Saturday’s pay-per-view event, he knew the moment he did it.

“I felt that in my fist, his teeth went into it, for sure,” Perry said Monday on The MMA Hour. “I was just like, ‘Whatever that was, I can’t wait to land that again and feel that again. I wanna feel that in my knuckles again.’”

And this is why Perry and bare-knuckle boxing go together like peaches and cream. He showed off a gash to the knuckle he believes destroyed Rockhold’s mouth; the injury required extra treatment to prevent an infection.

Mike Perry on The MMA Hour

It was all worth it.

“Whatever that was that I just hit him with, and after I hit him with it, he was defensive for about 30 more seconds there, moving around, sticking, trying to move, and he was not trying to get hit with that again,” Perry continued. “And then once we broke from that clinch, he was like, ‘Dude, I can’t even bite down on this mouthpiece,’ like his teeth were all inside.”

Here’s a slow-mo look at one of the punches that rearranged Rockhold’s teeth, courtesy of BKFC.

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Rockhold did manage to stun Perry on at least one occasion. Perry, though, continued to chase him down and landed the shots that made Rockhold turn to referee Dan Miragliotta and signal he was done fighting.

With a TKO win at 1:15 of Round 2, the 31-year-old Perry earned his third straight win in BKFC, taking out a former UFC middleweight champ — and likely retiring him from that particular mode of combat; Rockhold said afterward that he could “check bare-knuckle off the list” and looked forward to donning gloves once again.

Rockhold wondered if a better mouthpiece or a beard would have saved his teeth and lower lip, which sported a bad cut. Perry isn’t so sure.

“I was just like, ‘Oh,’ because I wanted the win to look like right after I hit him,” Perry said. “But he ate that shot. ... But then, he was like, ‘Damn, I don’t wanna take it again.’ ... It’s more than just the lip, it’s more than just the teeth shot. And yes, I caused that. I guess I hit him in the lip, which busted those teeth — that all went through.”

Photos by Phil Lambert

Perry watched the video that Rockhold posted and took note of the other damage on his face, as well.

“He’s got like two black eyes,” Perry said. “He’s got a lump on his face. So I hit him with more shots, but it’s like I was hitting him so fast, it was hard for people to see where the shot happened, when it happened, why he quit.

“They were trying to discredit me, [saying], ‘Oh, Luke just gave up.’ Listen, we were only two-and-a-half, three minutes into this fight, and I had already landed some significant damage that the people just couldn’t even keep up with.”

Perry has dealt with his own significant damage in a combat sports career that’s lasted nearly a decade. He called his badly disfigured nose after a 2019 fight that sent him to the hospital part of “sports history,” just as his elbow that knocked out Jake Ellenberger in 2017.

Gruesome injuries are part of the sport, and Perry believes whether he’s giving or taking them, he’s making memories that will keep him busy in the bare-knuckle ring.

“It’s boxing, but it’s meaner than boxing, because look what happens,” he said. “I can just bust your teeth out of your mouth.”