Mounir Lazzez seems like a soft-spoken kind of guy. The sort of fighter who does his talking in the cage. So it was a bit of a shock to hear him call out Mike Perry following Lazzez’s debut win inside the octagon at UFC Fight Island 1.
Lazzez (10-1) had just come away with a unanimous decision win against Abdul Razak Alhassan. It was a performance worthy of Fight of the Night, getting Lazzez off to a great start in the promotion.
Then came the Perry callout. A fun fight, to be sure, even if Perry’s career is in limbo at the moment.
Following the bout, Lazzez explained during a virtual post-fight press scrum why he chose Perry.
“Because he’s an idiot, and he’s trying to send the wrong idea about MMA,” Lazzez stated. “So I would like to put him in his place.”
So much for soft-spoken. Of course, Perry may be out of action for a while. After being caught on camera assaulting a man at a Texas eatery and ending up facing an assault charge, Perry has been benched by the UFC. The promotion will not offer him a bout while the troubled welterweight seeks treatment for alcohol abuse.
Mounir Lazzez knows only what the media knows, he said post-fight on Wednesday. But if it’s not Perry, “to be honest, just give me the toughest opponent,” he told Cageside Press.
Noting that “this is just the beginning,” and that he’d confer with his team, Mounir added “I don’t have another name, to be honest. But anyone.”
Watch the full UFC Fight Island 1 virtual post-fight press scrum with Mounir Lazzez above.
