Kevin Lee says Mike Perry ducked him, credits Daniel Rodriguez for being the only one of 12 guys to step up
UFC welterweight contender Kevin Lee says Mike Perry ducked him but credited Daniel Rodriguez for being the only one of 12 guys to step up.
Lee was originally set to fight rising welterweight contender Sean Brady at UFC 264 in July, but Brady got injured and the fight was pushed back to UFC Vegas 35 in late August. Unfortunately, Brady had to pull out of the fight yet again, which temporarily left Lee without an opponent. “The Motown Phenom” put out an open call on social media but he specifically pointed to Perry as the fight that he wanted. However, Perry allegedly declined to fight him and, ironically, the last man to beat Perry in Rodriguez was the one to step up.
Speaking to MMA reporter James Lynch, Lee was asked about how he ultimately arrived on Rodriguez as a short-notice opponent. According to Lee, his team asked for up to 12 opponents from the UFC. While top-10 ranked Belal Muhammad stepped up, he wanted to push the fight back to September, and Lee was adamant about fighting on August 28. When Perry turned him down, Lee accepted the fight with Rodriguez, instead.
“There was a couple of other guys that we asked for. We maybe personally reached out to like 12 guys, I was asking for anybody and everybody. Belal (Muhammad) was a good one. He accepted, but he wanted to push back the date to September, and my date has already been pushed back twice, so I didn’t want to wait. Mike Perry would have been the one, I think, but for some reason, he just doesn’t want to fight. So we settled on Rodriguez. He was the only one out of 12 guys to step up and accept, so hat’s off to him. We’re going to put on a good show,” Lee said.
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