Perry: I didn’t click with Winkeljohn, not sure he’ll be in corner again

Cowboy Cerrone left Jackson-Wink after Mike Winklejohn opted to corner gym newcomer Mike Perry, who lost. Perry appeared recently on Submission Radio and talked about what happened.

Cerrone did something to me that I was never going to do to him, and that made me susceptible to getting armbarred. I was never going to attack him with an armbar, even though I went for a key lock. I was really just looking for a position to punch him in the face with offensive ground and pound or whatever. Jiu Jitsu is a great counter to that and I have to be sharp in countering Jiu Jitsu with Jiu Jitsu, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t ready to roll around and shoot an armbar on him. So that’s what I gotta focus on, man. And I used to be so good at Jiu Jitsu and I still am, I just… I need to drill it consistently the way that I drill my mitts in kickboxing, and then I’ll be unstoppable.

“I learned so much rolling around with Cerrone in that octagon. My mind was wide awake, I was absorbing everything, every second of it, and I learned more in that four and a half minutes than I’ve learned my entire career. … From a black belt to a purple belt, I made a purple belt mistake. That’s what I did. It might’ve even been a white belt mistake.

I went for the takedown because it was what was open. We were constantly countering each other on the feet, and I got the body lock and it just made sense to grab that takedown. No there are things that I have to work from there if I’m gonna be taking people down. Watch me start Khabib’ing these motherf***ers and then they’re gonna be like, ‘Oh, we can’t let Perry take us down’. Then they gotta stand with me and I’m gonna KO everybody.

I walked up to him and I saw him in the back and I said, ‘Thanks for the opportunity’ – this is not in the cage – in the cage I told him, ‘good job’. He asked like an a**hole, ‘Did it break?’ I said, ‘yeah motherf***er, you heard it pop’. And then his boys came in there and they was like, ‘Oh, we want all the smoke,’ and my boy Frank ‘The Tank’ was ready to fight all their asses, and I had to be like, ‘hey bro, just chill.’

‘They were acting like they wanted to fight in the cage, because the big lion that Jackson/Wink brought with them was… I was maimed, my arm was no good. I couldn’t have fought with that arm. It was how I said on my Instagram, out of commission. So I had one arm. That makes the monster a lot weaker. So that’s kind of the sport that we’re in. And then in the back I saw him with that jacket on and I said, ‘hey man, that really is a nice jacket. I want to thank you for the opportunity though.’ I thanked him and he said, ‘Hey man, you put the fire back in me’. So, I got a good Donald Cerrone. I think we were the best two fighters on the planet that night.”

“I’m gonna tell you something here and it’s gonna sound crazy. I’m not gonna take nothing away from Cowboy. He won fair and square. But I felt like I was staring defeat in the face that night. … I was fighting a fight that wasn’t my fight, it was Jackson/Wink versus Cowboy Cerrone. So, it was my coaching that took my body over. It was something, the way that we trained that I was ending up with takedowns on people. And then their Jiu-Jitsu wasn’t the level of Cowboy Cerrone to counter me. So, I think I stared defeat in the face that night and I got in the cage anyways. I felt like I was gonna lose before I ever walked in. Maybe that’s just because I lost now, but I just felt like everything was against me. And it was just to make me stronger. I felt like I learned more from that loss than I would’ve ever learned from a win. That’s it. I was looking at the grim reaper and I entered the cage with him. I brought the real Cowboy Cerrone. We were the best two fighters on the planet when we were in that cage. Period.

I like Frank ‘The Tank’. Wherever he’s at, that’s where I’m trying to work my kickboxing. [If] he’s at Jackson-Wink, I’d love to come to Jackson-Wink. I’m willing to help the people there as much as I can, so I can get some help. But I’m also going back to Florida. My coach Julian Williams from Florida was a part of that fight, he was in the corner with me and Frank ‘The Tank’ and Coach Wink. But I didn’t do all my Jiu-Jitsu with him and Jacare Souza. I’m going back to Florida to do that. And then the way that I worked with Julian last camp, you know, not that much, like a week here and a couple of days there, that’s how I’m gonna work with Frank ‘The Tank’ keeping my mitts tight. I know what I fixed, I know what needed to be fixed. I came out here and fixed it. It was my back leg needed to bend, my hands and shoulders needed to come up to protect my chin and I needed to bounce around like a little butterfly. I came out and I did that. But Frank ‘The Tank’ will still be a part of my team, and I got Julian Williams and I’m looking for – I don’t know who the third person that’s going to fill that spot is. I mean, does it have to be Winkeljohn? Because it seems like the big gyms run parts of the UFC. It seems like the UFC wants the big gyms to fight the big gyms, so whoever that is, that’s my key in, I’m not the key yet.

[Coach Wink and I] just don’t click like that. I want to be around Frank ‘The Tank’. I want to be around Julian Williams. Being around Coach Wink I’m like, ahhh. I like him, he’s a great guy, but he knows that we didn’t click like that. We didn’t spend tremendous amounts of time together learning from one another.

“Look the game plan… look, I didn’t do what the coaches expected me to do because that was a miscommunication in what we were doing, obviously. When they saw me go for the takedown my corner was quiet. They were like, ‘oh S***, what’s he doing? He needs to get up and make him fight him’. I just saw the points and wanted to take the round and I just need to work that position, those positions, on top. I’ll be unstoppable.

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