Conor McGregor ‘fires’ Jake Paul’s beaten opponent Mike Perry from bare-knuckle fight league

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Conor McGregor has ‘fired’ Mike Perry from Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) after the ex-UFC star was knocked out by Jake Paul on Saturday.

Perry competed in the UFC from 2016 until 2021, before excelling in BKFC in recent years. But the American, 32, faced Paul in a standard boxing match on Saturday (20 July), suffering a sixth-round loss after being dropped multiple times.

McGregor recently bought a stake in BKFC and expressed support for Perry before Saturday’s fight – having traded many barbs with Paul over the years – but the Irishman has now seemingly turned on “Platinum”.

After Perry lost to Paul, 27, in Florida, McGregor tweeted: “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 teased last week that he could compete in BKFC in the future, while his UFC career remains up in the air; the 36-year-old was due to face Michael Chandler in June but suffered a broken toe, postponing the bout indefinitely.

After taking aim at Perry on X, McGregor replied to a taunt from Chandler, insisting that his broken toe is “fully healed”. However, the Irishman soon deleted that tweet.

McGregor has not fought since July 2021, when he sustained a broken leg in a loss to Dustin Poirier. Six months earlier, Poirier handed McGregor the first knockout loss of his career.

McGregor, who previously reigned as the first dual-weight champion in UFC history, has not secured a win since January 2020. On that occasion, he knocked out Donald Cerrone in 40 seconds.

McGregor’s only subsequent results have been his defeats by Poirier, while his win over Cerrone followed a submission loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov in 2018 and a TKO by Floyd Mayweather in a 2017 boxing match.