Nickerson: ‘He was just uncontrollable’
Perry’s ex speaks on alleged abuse
Danielle Nickerson wants to make something clear: She’s not out for retribution. That’s not what this is.
However, staying silent about how her ex-husband and UFC welterweight Mike Perry allegedly physically abused her is no longer an option.
“This is nothing to hurt him,” Nickerson told MMA Junkie during a lengthy interview. “I know that my words are not going to have an impact on his career.”
MMA Junkie obtained 911 audio, another police recording and court records that support Nickerson’s detailed accounts of Perry’s alleged abuse.
Nickerson, 28, alleges she was physically assaulted by Perry “a handful of times,” the worst of it coming this year in the early-morning hours of Feb. 10. Nickerson alleges an enraged Perry, 29, “ground-and-pounded” her in their home until he got tired after a night on the town in Orlando, Florida. She fled to a neighbor’s house, where she was picked up by Perry’s mother, Sabra Young, who took her back to her home in nearby Altamonte Springs. When Perry arrived, his mother locked him out and called 911. According to the audio obtained by MMA Junkie, Young reported to dispatch that her son was “violent,” causing her to fear for her life.
“It was like a movie,” Nickerson said. “You’re like, this isn’t my life. What is happening right now? I (thought) if I don’t leave and run out of this house, I will die.”
While Nickerson says nothing was “ever even remotely close” to that night, she alleges other domestic abuse prior to it. On one occasion, Perry allegedly hit her on the forehead and left a hematoma from his wedding ring. He also allegedly struck her in the face, leaving a bruised eye and swollen lip.
Nickerson took photos of herself after both incidents.
She shared the photos with
MMA Junkie but declined permission to publish them out of fear of being publicly shamed. The images accurately depict the injuries Nickerson described. Two of Nickerson’s friends, who wished to remain unnamed, told MMA Junkie that Nickerson shared details of the abuse with them.
All this led Nickerson to file a protective order against Perry in March. As MMA Junkie first reported in late July, the motion was denied by a Florida judge on the basis that “general relationship problems and uncivil behavior are not domestic violence.” In submitting the order, Nickerson checked the box classifying the case as “domestic violence.” However, Nickerson said at the time she filed, she withheld details from her written statements because she had mixed feelings about her future with her then-husband and “didn’t want to ruin his life.”
Even now, that’s not her purpose for speaking out.
“This is not (something UFC President Dana White will see) and be like, ‘He’s cut.’ There’s no way. I don’t have that sort of impact. This is not for that,” Nickerson said. “This is for helping others. This is for getting the word out there about what you can do to help people in a domestic violence situation and the warning signs and how to not get this deep into something. Hopefully this will be something that pushes the UFC into doing more checks on their heads and brain damage and really taking care of them physically.”
Perry’s manager, Abe Kawa of First Round Management, declined to comment when reached by MMA Junkie on Tuesday. A statement from Perry’s Twitter account denying Nickerson’s allegations was later issued.
“I did not put hands on my ex at any point in our short term (sic) marriage,” Perry said, adding that he’s received help for both alcohol use and anger management. “… I have realized that I have said some things in the past that do not put me and what I stand for in the best of light and for that I apologize. I am now in a loving relationship where I am looking forward and excited to welcoming (sic) my first born. I’m hopeful my ex can move on and find peace as I have.”
The UFC declined MMA Junkie’s request for comment. Perry’s next fight is scheduled for Nov. 21 against Robbie Lawler at UFC 255.
Spiraling out of control
When Nickerson started dating Perry in 2015, he was two bouts into his pro MMA career. They met at the gym and started dating – and things were good.
Things were so good, in fact, that Nickerson, a tennis pro who took up MMA training as a hobby, regularly cornered Perry’s fights after he joined the UFC in August 2016. She became the “Platinum Princess,” a moniker Perry gave her after his own “Platinum” fighter nickname. Nickerson says they dealt with “normal relationship stuff ” but domestic violence wasn’t an issue for the first four years.
“It was not always like that,” Nickerson said. “Really just toward the end. … He always had a temper, but I was al
ways the one person who could calm him down and bring him back to earth.”
However, Nickerson says issues escaped her control after they married in September 2019. Perry’s alcohol use almost always was a contributing factor. This past July, the UFC announced it had ordered Perry to seek treatment for his alcohol problem after video showed him punch a man outside a restaurant in Texas. It was those types of situations that Nickerson got used to dealing with during their marriage.
“He was just uncontrollable,” Nickerson said. “There was no bringing him down. There was no talking to him. There was no reasoning with him. It all honestly seemed like a horrible downward spiral when he lost the fight to Geoff Neal.”
Against Neal in December 2019 at UFC 245, Perry lost by first-round TKO. A head kick and follow-up punches led to the first knockout loss of his career.
Nickerson, who was in Perry’s corner that night in Las Vegas, says Perry’s memory was foggy when they got back to the locker room at T-Mobile Arena. He had no recollection of what just happened. She had to explain it to him.
“He just had no idea and was getting so upset that he didn’t know and was insisting that we were about to go out (to fight) again,” she said. “Like, ‘We’re about to go out, right? We’re about to walk out. That didn’t just happen. That wasn’t me.’ He kept saying, ‘That wasn’t me. That wasn’t me. I didn’t even do that. I don’t know what happened. That wasn’t me. You can’t tell me I just went out there and got knocked out. I didn’t do that.’ He was insistent on it.”
Even after that night, Nickerson says “it took a couple days for everything to totally come back. Some of it he didn’t remember at all.”
When she looks back now, Nickerson wonders whether repeated head blows Perry sustained during his six-year MMA career caused mood swings and anger issues that are often associated with brain trauma.
“If anyone’s ever watched his fights, you know that he gets hit a lot, and it’s entertaining whether he wins or loses, because he just goes forward,” Nickerson said. “That’s a lot on your head and your brain. Obviously he had never been knocked out before that. Once that happened, it was like a light switch changed. And that was scary.”
‘Craziest, worst night of my life’
Nothing was scarier than that night in February, which Nickerson calls the “craziest, worst night of my life.” According to her, one of Perry’s friends – whom Nickerson didn’t name – invited them to a bar to watch an Orlando Magic game. They went, but the plan changed when the friend asked them to meet at a nightclub instead.
By the time Nickerson and Perry arrived, she says their friends had already been drinking for a while. Perry wanted to catch up.
“Alcohol always made things really, really bad,” Nickerson said. “That was the first sign I was nervous. I think when you get in these situations, you want to very lightly tiptoe around anything. Like, don’t breathe wrong is what I always would joke about.”
Nickerson says she found herself in that situation after Perry got into an altercation with an intoxicated woman who was part of an engagement party. The woman, who’d been hanging out with Perry’s friend all night, followed them to another bar. There, Nickerson says tempers flared when the woman gave Perry attitude.
“I immediately knew this was going to be an issue,” Nickerson said. “He said some really vulgar things back to her.”
The woman’s response was to pour a drink over Perry’s head, which “sky rocketed him into another dimension of anger.” According to Nickerson, Perry hit the woman, knocking her off a hightop chair. The bouncer, whom they knew, immediately kicked them out.
Nickerson was in full damage control during the drive home, “still trying to smooth things over.” But Perry was enraged and even sped through a red light. At that point, Nickerson wanted out of the car. Perry “slammed the breaks” in front of a house and yelled at her to “get the (expletive) out.” She did and was about to call an Uber, but Perry returned two minutes later, yelling at her to get back in. She reluctantly agreed but only if she drove. When she walked to the driver’s side, Nickerson says Perry threw her to the ground, got on top of her and made verbal threats as he faked like he would punch her.
Perry got up moments later, went back in the car and drove away.
“After that, I was nervous, so I called his friend that we were just with,” Nickerson said. “And I was like, ‘Hey, I don’t
know what to do, because he just threw me in someone’s yard, he just ran a red light and is acting absurd more than ever. I don’t know if I can handle him when I get home, and I don’t know what to do, so can you please help me?’ ”
When they arrived at the house, Nickerson says Perry was still furious. It didn’t help that she walked in with his friend, whose presence seemed to make things worse, so she asked him to leave when Perry went to the bathroom. After the friend left, Nickerson says she walked into another bathroom to compose herself. She walked out still trying to calm down Perry but to no avail.
“He ran straight at me like a football player to tackle me, sprinted across the house,” Nickerson said. “Where we were standing was on tile, and I really did not want to get tackled on tile. So I ran to the carpet in the living room.”
Nickerson says she tried to put distance between herself and Perry, but he chased her. They reached a standstill, with only a plugged-in electric massage chair between them.
“He literally grabbed the chair and ripped it out of the wall and threw it across the room like Hulk-strength scary,” Nickerson said.
She knew what was coming next. All she could do was cover up in the fetal position.
“He had his knee on my belly and just ground-and-pounded me until he got tired,” Nickerson said. “I did a decent job of covering my face. I still had hematomas on the back of my head. My entire right side from my entire arm, my legs, my ribs, everything was covered in bruises the next few days. He just got all of his anger out on me, and on the last punch I clearly – I think that’s why he stopped, is we heard my rib crack. He knew and sat back, and I think he was just tired – tired of hitting me so much.”
As Perry sat against the wall and breathed heavily, Nickerson says she got up and fled to their neighbor’s house. She didn’t have her phone and couldn’t remember anyone’s number, so she used her neighbor’s phone to log into Facebook Messenger. She called Perry’s mother, who picked up Nickerson and took her back to Perry’s sister’s house where she lived. Perry saw this and followed them.
With Nickerson safely behind closed doors, Young called 911 while Perry sat in his car. The audio, which MMA Junkie obtained from the Seminole County Sheriff, reveals Young describing a nerve-racking situation while she, Nickerson, her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandkids were inside the house.
“My son is out in the driveway, and he’s violent right now, and I’m scared for my life, and I don’t know what he’s going to do,” Young tells the dispatch. “He’s revving his engine right now. His wife is inside my house, and I’m afraid he’s going to hurt her.”
Nickerson thought the worst in that moment: “I was horrified he was just going to bust into the house and continue.”
Thankfully, Perry didn’t. He drove off within two minutes. Police arrived after Perry left; no incident report was filed because an arrest wasn’t made.
Nickerson says that was the last time Perry assaulted her.
Message to other survivors
Although their divorce was finalized in July, Nickerson says she’s been free of Perry for eight months. Both of them have moved on.
Perry is in a relationship with Latory Gonzalez, whom he let corner his most recent fight, a June 27 win over Mickey Gall at UFC on ESPN 12. One month later, Gonzalez announced her pregnancy with Perry, who will become a father for the first time.
Nickerson has taken control of her life and is turning her traumatic experience into a positive. She still goes to therapy. Her main objective is helping women who’ve endured domestic violence similar to her. Nickerson partners with BetterHelp.com, which offers affordable virtual therapy to survivors of domestic violence, by doing outreach through social media. She also runs the private Instagram page @treated.like.a.princess for women who have suffered, or are suffering, through an abusive relationship. “It’s just a safe place for us to talk and have daily affirmations of something positive,” Nickerson said.
It’s not how she envisioned, but Nickerson has felt “a sense of peace” being able to focus on herself and her cause for much of this year. When she looks back on those final months with Perry, she doesn’t see herself as a victim but rather a survivor.
More than anything, Nickerson hopes women will be aware of any signs of domestic violence in their relationships and find the strength to walk away.
“Really the biggest thing is I know it’s horrifying to leave. You have so many emotions,” she said. “You feel like you’re going to let everyone down. You feel like you failed at this relationship for whatever (reason), but there is a point that you just have to draw a line in the sand, and you can’t sacrifice your life for somebody else’s in that sense, literally, where you could almost die. That is not OK. No one will ever blame you for that.”