Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and Lenier Pero on Thursday had a heavyweight war of words to announce their April 25 bout at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

Miller, 27-1-2 (22 KOs), wasted little time getting to the point of his trash talk. A 37-year-old who hails from Brooklyn, New York, Miller addressed Pero as “perro” (the Spanish word for “dog”) at Thursday’s press conference at the Caribe Royale in Orlando, Florida.

“I am going to put on a boxing clinic on that night and show how elegant it can be,” Pero said via a translator. “I will say I will stop him, and I will stop him quickly.”

Miller wasn’t having any of it.

“There won’t be any of that pretty moving around,” Miller said. “I am going to run him the fuck over. I am going back to the old-school ‘Big Baby’ style, 70-80 punches a round.”

Pero pushed back on that assessment, and referenced a wild viral moment from Miller’s most recent start, when Miller’s hairpiece popped loose and ultimately was tossed aside in a January split decision win over Kingsley Ibeh.

“That is not going to happen on fight night,” Pero said. “I know you probably have a lot more followers than I have. You are strong on social media, but you have more fame because of that wig that fell off last time you fought.”

Miller claimed after the fight that an ingredient in his shampoo caused him to lose hair just two days before facing Ibeh, but any embarrassment over either the rug or the rough outing was salved by a win.

“The toupee thing is something that was not planned, but we took and ran with [it],” Miller said. “I will take an ugly win over a bad loss any day,” Miller said.

Miller has had quite a run. At one point, he was expected to be boxing’s big thing out of New York City and was in line for an Anthony Joshua fight until his failed drug test saw the matchup scuttled, opening the door for Andy Ruiz Jnr to pull off an improbable upset of Joshua. Miller took three-and-a-half years off after the incident, and is 4-1-1 since returning in 2022, with his only loss coming in a stoppage at the hands of former heavyweight titleholder Daniel Dubois.

Pero, 13-0 (8 KOs), is a 33-year-old Cuban boxer who lives in Miami and makes his training camps in Las Vegas. He has flown under the radar and in the shadow of his younger brother, Dainier Pero, who is emerging as one of the heavyweight division’s best up-and-comers.

Lenier most recently fought in November, winning a competitive unanimous decision over Jordan Thompson. Now he is set to meet Miller in what can only be considered a crossroads fight.

“It is a fight I have wanted for quite a while,” Pero said. “We have crossed paths in Miami, and we have been calling each other out on social media. What I will say is, Cubans never say no to a fight.”

Miller ended the press conference with a concise warning: “I am whooping that ass April 25. That is it.”

Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.