Paul Daley isn’t exactly one to bite his tongue.
The heavy handed Brit has been venting his frustration about Bellator’s seeming lack of interest in promoting him as one of their flagships stars since his big knockout win over Lorenz Larkin in 2017.
Disappointed with his lack of promotion after the Larkin fight, Daley posted a ‘f-ck’ you to Bellator in January, but the 35-year-old seems to have simmered down since then.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani on a recent edition of The MMA Hour, Daley said he will look to have a talk with Bellator president Scott Coker at the upcoming Bellator 200 event in London, England on May 25.
“We’re going to be meeting at Bellator London next week,” Daley said, per MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti. We’re going to have a sit-down and we’re going to hash things out, see exactly what can be done to keep ‘Semtex’ happy.”
Daley is optimistic about his meeting with Coker, telling Helwani that his future with the promotion is ‘very promising’.
“Very promising,” he said. “Just the fact — like I said to you when I spoke to you last time, I’d never spoken to Scott on a personal level apart from pre- and post-fight press conferences. So for him to make time, come over and say, ‘Look Paul, I’ve heard what you’ve been saying, I do want to sit down and have a chat with you’ — he wanted to do it there and then. I’m like, ‘I’m cutting weight right now. Can we do it maybe some time in the future?’ So we set the date for Friday at Bellator 200.”
While Daley appears to have changed his tune over the past week, the knockout artist is still angry with the way things played out in his co-headlining welterweight bout with Jon Fitch at Bellator 199. Fitch, a former UFC welterweight title challenger, out-wrestled Daley for three rounds at the SAP Center in San Jose, California, and walked away with a dominant decision win.
During the final seconds of the third round, while Fitch was smothering Daley against the fence, the Nottingham-based fighter got into an expletive-laden exchange with the Bellator commentary team and started booing his own fight.
According to Daley, he had no intentions of attending the post-fight press conference so decided to express his feelings inside the cage.
“Do you know what it was, I think there was about a minute left on the clock, the ref was obviously not going to stand the fight up, they were not going to give me my post-fight interview, I was not going to a post-fight press conference, so I had to air it while I had the opportunity,” Daley said of his in-cage rant. “I was in a situation where I felt comfortable, his ground-and-pound was pathetic — as you can see after the fight, I had no marks, I wasn’t concussed — his submission attempts, I don’t even think he attempted to submit me.
“He was allowed to stay on the ground peppering away with these ineffective shots, so I thought I’d let whoever was watching know that I was comfortable; he’s pathetic; Bellator, at the time, my opinion of them was that they’re pathetic; and I felt like, with everyone against me, this is the best time to let them know exactly how I feel.”
Given that Daley will be in attendance for Bellator 200, don’t be surprised to see another confrontation with British rival Michael ‘Venom’ Page, who is scheduled to take on David Rickels in the co-main event. Daley and ‘MVP’ have been at each other’s throats for over a year, but the two welterweight strikers have never had the opportunity to settle things in the Bellator cage.
Bellator 200 takes place this Friday, May 25 at the SSE Arena in Wembley, London.