Mike Perry wonders if something is up with Dillon Danis’ latest pull-out.
Saturday’s Duel Arena event in Orlando, Fla., was to be headlined by Perry vs. Danis, but at Thursday’s press conference for the event, it was announced that Danis would be unable to compete and he was replaced by UFC veteran Brandon Jenkins. Danis later released a video blaming an arm injury for his withdrawal.
Perry received the news that Danis was out shortly before the official announcement and at first, all he had was questions.
“My reaction was, ‘How?’ When?’” Perry told MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck. “Because as you can see on his interview with Sean O’Malley and Tim Welch, his wrist is healed up, but don’t know when that injury happened. He may have told someone, even saw three days ago that my new opponent was posting he’s ready to fight this weekend in case anything happens. This was three days ago, no one wanted to let me in on it. So did he know before that? Obviously, this happened to Dillon not yesterday. This happened whenever it happened. OK, if it’s an injury that’s going to keep him from this fight, he’s probably going to still end up wrestling Arman [Tsarukyan at RAF 14 on Oct. 3) if that goes through. But it’s kind of f*cked up, like he never planned on doing this, and it makes me think this was always their plan.
“Without the other famous guy, I’ve got to take a huge pay cut, a massive pay cut to take this new fight, which you would think, as a professional athlete, accepting something in the last second is going to give you more, rather than much, much less. But the goal was preparing to bring violence to my city in an entertaining way.”
Danis has earned a reputation for booking bouts against high-profile opponents before later failing to show up for fight night. With that in mind, Perry and his team had already made up their minds that the fighter would be ready to headline in Orlando no matter the circumstances.
“We prepare for things like this,” Perry said. “When I’m training in the gym with my coaches, with my team, obviously we worked a specific game plan for the type of style that was Dillon Danis, and my punching and boxing and standup game was always in my back pocket. It’s all about, like, I saw this as my hometown arena.
“I even said a month out, I’m going to be prepared to be at the Kia Center and fight in the main event on Aug. 29 against whoever it may be because people have been making the joke that maybe he’s not going to come, he’s the pull-out expert. So we just prepare to go to battle, go to war, and whoever stands across from me is in for some freakin’ trouble.”
With Danis out, Perry and Jenkins was immediately booked, with Perry now preparing for a middleweight bout as opposed to a welterweight bout. The change threw off Perry’s pre-fight plans, but he did his best to stay on target from a dieting standpoint.
“There’s so much that goes through your head,” Perry said. “You have a lot of questions, you have a lot of what ifs, because I planned and prepared and I was perfectly set to make my weight cut that night. Only cut a little bit, but it still would have been hard work.
“Then it’s like, instead of going to work out after the press conference, it was I’m going to a steakhouse because I don’t have to work hard to make that weight in the morning, and I tried to continue to eat clean, don’t want to let myself go overboard and have too much dessert or all that stuff. I tried to add some weight on, I tried to eat as much as I could and was still only, like, 182 after dinner. I’m like, damn.”
As disappointed as Perry is to not be fighting Danis, he still looks forward to putting on a show against Jenkins in front of a friendly Florida crowd. Perry has had a successful 2026 campaign so far, earning a dominant stoppage win over Nate Diaz at the inaugural MVP MMA event this past May.
Perry expects to take care of business this weekend and is already teasing big news for his next fight.
“I am focused on tomorrow night, but in that clip on YouTube, we cut some things out because there were some other things or even on another call we got some big news last night that I cannot give,” Perry said. “With a successful night tomorrow, we are looking at some huge news in combat sports history and I’m looking forward to it, I just have to stay focused on the task at hand.
“Brandon is a wild card, and he’s got nothing to lose by coming here, which makes him very dangerous and I’m Mr. No Nonsense. I don’t play around with this shit, so I’ve got to handle business first and then there should be some big, cool things happening for me in combat sports after all the hard work I’ve done.”
