Mike Perry has fought in the UFC and BKFC, and can count the likes of Luke Rockhold, Cowboy Cerrone, and Michael "Venom" Page as previous opponents ... but none of those scraps were bigger than Saturday night's bare-knuckle fight with former MMA champ Eddie Alvarez!

"This is a very tremendous opportunity for me, the biggest fight of my career to date," Perry told TMZ Sports this week.

"Eddie Alvarez, he's got quite the resume. I'm happy to be against it, and I'm looking to shut it down whether that be finishing him or just picking him apart for 12 minutes."

FYI, Perry is 3-0 in BKFC (Rockhold, Page, Lane) ... and is the promotion's biggest star. Alvarez has less experience sans gloves ... he's 1-0 with a win over Chad Mendes.

As for where he goes after Eddie, Perry says he's "looking to put on a good performance and skies the limit" afterward.

"We saw Conor McGregor and me face off last time. I was talking a little bit of s*** about Sean Strickland, he's very upset about it. He's angry with me. Every time he talks to me he's like, 'We gotta box. We gotta box.' I wrote him and said, 'Come to the fight in Utah' and he didn't even open that message and read it."