We are only one month into 2017 and the most exciting fight of the year belongs to Paul Daley and Brennan Ward. At Bellator 170, Daley and Ward slugged it out for 2:27 with “Semtex” connecting a perfect spinning back fist and followed up by a flying knee to knockout Ward.
It seemed like Daley would face fellow Englishman Michael “Venom” Page in his next fight but the Viacom-owned company announced on Thursday, Daley would instead face former UFC welterweight title challenger and recent promotion signee Rory MacDonald at Bellator 179.
The exciting win put Daley back on the map as two million people watched the fight on Spike TV and helped vault him into the fight against MacDonald. The sky is the limit for the British slugger and he’s ready to cause damage in the 170-pound division.
“He’s (Daley) been one of my favorite fighters for the last ten years,” Bellator president Scott Coker told MMA Imports. “When you look back at the old Strikeforce days when I owned that company, he had a fight with Nick Diaz that I think is probably one of the greatest one round fights in the history of MMA. I call it the Hagler-Hearns a round. He’s very exciting. I think the people that have not seen him fight or kind of been on the fence about him, he proved to them all that this guy has star potential and he’s back. He’s going to some damage in that 170-pound weight class for us.”
Bellator 179 takes place on May 19 from the SSE Arena in London, England. No word on whether the card will air live on Spike or on tape delay.
