Preview: UFC on ESPN 12 ‘Poirier vs. Hooker’ Main Card

Welterweights

Mike Perry (13-6) vs. Mickey Gall (6-2)

ODDS: Perry (-280), Gall (+240)

Has the UFC finally broken Perry? He burst onto the scene with a knockout win over Hyun Gyu Lim in 2016 and has remained relevant ever since, for reasons both positive and negative. Outside of the cage, Perry has an undeniable charisma while also being undeniably problematic; inside of the cage, he showed a surprising ability to fight within himself, even though he has been a focused knockout artist for most of his career. At his best, “Platinum Mike” has managed to score some beautifully brutal knockouts, but at his worst, Perry has been left chasing opponents without much of a backup plan. After a brutal loss to Donald Cerrone—Perry chose to grapple and unsurprisingly got tapped—the Flint, Michigan, native responded with two excellent performances in a win over Alex Oliveira and a narrow loss to Vicente Luque. There has always been the sense that Perry was a diamond in the rough who could shine with the right training, and the Luque fight enhanced those possibilities. In an absolute war, Perry showed some more tricks, even if it was something as simple as fighting while moving backwards. Unfortunately, Perry’s body may finally be betraying him at the wrong time. He infamously had his nose mangled in the fight against Luque, which made it extremely concerning when Geoff Neal managed to stun and then finish Perry in just 90 seconds in December. Perry’s durability has always been one of his calling cards, but the UFC has been content to throw him in war after war, and he may be paying the price just as he is turning a technical corner. On the plus side: This is the rare fight where that probably will not matter for Perry, as he takes on Gall.

Four and a half years into his UFC career, it is still difficult to know what to make of Gall. His 2016 campaign was at least an impressive example of Gall making his own break. He was the man who talked his way into a fight with Phil Brooks, and after dominating on that stage, he managed to get a co-main event assignment where he tapped Sage Northcutt. However, after an attempted callout of Dan Hardy went nowhere, Gall’s career kind of stalled. It was nearly a year before he made his return at Madison Square Garden against Randy Brown, which turned out to be a losing effort in a mess of a fight. A win over George Sullivan proved little—Gall was still a raw submission specialist—and one of the New Jersey native’s callouts finally bit him back in 2019. He targeted Diego Sanchez, who managed to stifle Gall’s grappling attack and earn a one-sided win. It feels like Gall has been ill-served by the UFC model and should have gotten more cage time over the last few years, but his last bout provided some hope. Salim Touahri was a blank slate of an opponent, but Gall showed some improved striking and looked like a UFC-level prospect. Now, the UFC has decided to try and cash in on his cache again, shooting him up the ladder against Perry.

Perry decided to grapple with Cerrone, so there is a chance that he makes a similarly dumb choice here and hands this fight to Gall. There is also some chance that Gall’s tenacity pays off if he turns out to be a particularly durable fighter. If he can eat a few bombs on route to grabbing Perry’s back, he is a legitimately talented grappler who should easily have the upper hand. However, the likeliest scenario is that Gall’s aggression just gets him punched in the face—hard. The pick is Perry via first-round knockout.

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