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#3 UFC Welterweight Division: Mike Perry vs. Tim Means

Can Mike Perry return to form against Tim Means this weekend?

In all honesty, it’s a bit of a surprise that Perry has been booked on this card given his recent issues with accusations of domestic violence. However, it appears that the UFC are willing to brush the accusations under the carpet and continue on as normal with Platinum.

Initially pegged to face former UFC Welterweight champion Robbie Lawler here, instead Perry finds himself faced with longtime veteran Means. So will Perry’s brute-force power punching or Means’ dangerous clinch striking win the day?

Perry’s career path remains one of the more interesting in the UFC right now. When he debuted in the UFC back in 2016, it appeared that the promotion had found a modern-day Phil Baroni, all wild confidence, trash talk, and massive power punches. Two straight wins by KO made him a man to watch.

However, over the next few years, losses to the likes of Santiago Ponzinibbio, Max Griffin, and Alan Jouban suggested that those Baroni comparisons were even closer than anyone had expected.

Like Baroni, Perry was capable of KOing any opponent. But if an opponent could avoid his power punching, use movement and technical striking to land their own shots, or take him to the ground, he was in trouble.

And essentially, things haven’t really changed for Perry. His most recent UFC win – over Mickey Gall – saw him show a few new wrinkles in his ground game. But to tell the truth, Gall was always physically overmatched in that fight.

Means, on the other hand, shouldn’t be physically overmatched at all. A longtime veteran whose MMA career dates back to 2004 – he’s been in the UFC since 2012. The Dirty Bird is primarily a striker, although he’s a perfectly competent grappler, too.

The biggest strength Means has is his range and length. Despite once fighting at 155lbs, he’s a tall, lanky fighter who stands at 6’2” and possesses a 75” reach. That gives him a big advantage over Perry in this fight, as Platinum is only 5’10”.

However, Means’ style means that he’ll be playing a risky game. The Dirty Bird doesn’t tend to sit behind a jab and look to use his range like you’d expect. Instead, he tends to look to grab his opponent in the clinch, where he can abuse them with sharp knees and elbows.

Against Perry, though, a man with concussive power? Looking for the clinch could be a mistake. Perry’s adept at striking from close range himself, as we saw when he knocked out both Jake Ellenberger and Danny Roberts in UFC action.

And more worryingly, Means is 36 now and is nowhere near as durable as he once was. The Dirty Bird had his lights turned out by Niko Price in 2019, and while he’s won fights since, he simply doesn’t seem to weather punishment as well anymore.

Means can definitely win this fight if he can keep Perry at range and then use his length to trap him in a submission or catch him with something heavy from the clinch. However, the style that Means uses just leaves him too open to Perry’s biggest strengths in my mind. I think Platinum takes this one by KO.

The Pick: Perry via second-round KO