A better way is to use existing modules to parse html for you, for example HTML::Parser: (code is only used to demo the idea. Obviously you need to add more handling, but parsing is done for you correctly.) 
use HTML::Parser;
use strict;

my $str = '<p>something something</p>
<h2>blah <<< blah blah</h2>
<p>something something</p>';

my $parser = HTML::Parser->new(default_h=> [\&handler, "tagname, text"
+]);
$parser->parse($str);

sub handler {
    my ($tag, $text) = @_;
    if ($tag) {
        if ($tag eq "h2") {
             print "<h1>";
        } else {
             print "<$tag>";
        }
    } else {
        print $text;
    }
}

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In reply to Re: Supplying the RHS to a regex as a variable by pg
in thread Supplying the RHS to a regex as a variable by Cody Pendant

Title:
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