Mike Perry Re-Signs With UFC Five Years After His Exit

Mike Perry is heading back to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. His longtime manager, Malki Kawa, announced on Friday, 13 November that Perry has re-signed with the promotion, more than five years after his last appearance inside the octagon. Kawa delivered the news in the written caption of an Instagram post shared with Perry's account, writing simply: "Mike Perry has re-signed to the @ufc."

MMA journalist Ariel Helwani separately reported the signing on Friday, citing Kawa, and said he had been told no date has been set for Perry's first fight back. Neither the announcement nor the reporting that followed named an opponent, a weight division, or the terms of the agreement, and none of those details should be treated as settled until the UFC confirms them. What is confirmed is the return itself, along with the fact that Perry has re-entered the UFC's anti-doping testing pool, with the official 2026 table listing one test session beside his name and carrying a 13 November update.

The long road back to the octagon

Perry's first UFC run began at UFC 202 in August 2016, when he stopped Hyun Gyu Lim in the first round on the card headlined by the Conor McGregor versus Nate Diaz rematch. Over the next five years he compiled seven wins and eight losses across 15 appearances, building a reputation as one of the welterweight division's most reliably entertaining fighters, win or lose. His victories included knockout finishes over Danny Roberts, Jake Ellenberger and Alex Reyes, plus decisions against Paul Felder, Alex Oliveira and Mickey Gall.

The defeats, though, were against established names, including Vicente Luque, Geoff Neal, Donald Cerrone and Tim Means, and Perry lost four of his final five UFC outings. His last win in the promotion came by unanimous decision against Mickey Gall in June 2020, and his final UFC fight ended in a three-round unanimous-decision loss to Daniel Rodriguez on 10 April 2021. The promotion then chose not to renew his contract, closing the first chapter of his octagon career.

Reinvention in bare knuckle

Away from the UFC, Perry reinvented himself in bare-knuckle boxing and became the face of Bare Knuckle FC. He won the promotion's King of Violence title and beat a run of former UFC names, including former champions Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez, as well as Michael Page and Jeremy Stephens. The bare-knuckle run gave Perry a second act built on the same qualities that defined his UFC career: durability, pressure and a willingness to trade in close.

It also made him one of the sport's most recognizable names outside the UFC, which is why his departure from bare-knuckle boxing attracted attention of its own. According to his representatives, Perry opted not to re-sign with Bare Knuckle FC despite attracting multiple lucrative offers, choosing instead to return to mixed martial arts and to the promotion where his career began. Most Valuable Promotions, which staged his 2026 MMA return, is reported to be going full throttle into MMA in 2027, but Perry's next chapter will be written in the UFC.

Kawa's announcement concerns a promotional return, not Perry's first MMA fight since leaving the UFC, because Perry already came back to the sport earlier this year. In May he beat Nate Diaz by second-round corner stoppage on the Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano card, a victory that put his name back into MMA conversation after years away from the cage. His August appearance against late replacement Brandon Jenkins ended very differently, in a first-round defeat after Perry dislocated his shoulder.

Perry has since released footage on his YouTube channel of the moment he learned of his UFC return, showing Kawa calling him with the news the day before the Jenkins defeat. The video teases the opponent and the pay involved, with the audio muted when those details were shared, so neither can be treated as confirmed. Unconfirmed speculation online has linked Perry with a possible UFC card in his home city of Orlando in the first quarter of 2027, and with another Florida fan favourite making a comeback, Jorge Masvidal, but no matchup is booked and no confirmed reports have been published.

What comes next

For now, the only certainties are the signing itself and the wait that follows it. Perry's UFC career was fought at welterweight, but the division for his return has not been disclosed, and the same applies to the length of the deal and the money involved. The anti-doping listing is evidence of testing activity rather than a published contract announcement, and a return date cannot be calculated simply from that single entry. Kawa's statement supplies the confirmation that matters: Perry is a UFC fighter again.

The announcement landed during UFC 334 fight week at Madison Square Garden, with the promotion's attention fixed on Saturday night's heavyweight and bantamweight title fights. Perry's return adds a familiar and unpredictable name to the welterweight picture just as the UFC heads into 2027, and the question now is not whether he is coming back, but who will be standing across the octagon from him when he does.