Paul Daley’s retirement bout has seen a change of plans.
Bellator announced Tuesday that Daley (43-18-2) will fight promotional newcomer Wendell Giacomo (9-2) in a welterweight bout at Bellator 281 on May 13 at OVO Arena Wembley in London. Daley was originally scheduled to fight Andrey Koreshkov. No reason was given for the change.
The new bout was first reported by Metro News.
Daley’s bout at Bellator 281 is expected to be the last of his 19-year career. During an appearance on The MMA Hour in January, the 39-year-old Englishman announced his plan to hang up the gloves.
“It will be my retirement fight,” Daley said. “After many years in the game, the hours on the road, hours in the gym, the years have caught up with me, and now every morning, I wake up with a bad back, and I’m just tired.
“I’ve put in a lot of time in the sport, and I’m in a position to retire, fortunately. So yeah, I’m going to retire. I don’t want to be one of those fighters who’s getting knocked out all the time by the younger guys. I want to be a guy who goes out when I want to go out.”
Giacomo, 27, makes his Bellator debut with wins in eight of his past nine fights. The Brazilian most recently fought at an LFA event in Rio de Janeiro last July, defeating Uyran Carlos by unanimous decision.
Bellator 281 has already seen several changes to its welterweight slate, with a Yaroslav Amosov title defense against Michael “Venom” Page being changed to Page vs. Logan Storley for an interim title, and a bout between three-time Bellator champion Douglas Lima and Jason Jackson being postponed for a future date still to be determined.
its a shame he never made it back to UFC
Him versus AK would have been cool.
truth
Should have fought Masvidal in a battle to settle once and for what’s better:
In-ring chicken shit sucker punches that do nothing or masked up street chicken shit sucker punches that do nothing.
Should have fought Masvidal in a battle of lowest IQ
kos had it coming and they were still in the cage at least, not comparable to scumbag mas
koschek faked getting fouled twice in that fight and it was VERY clearly fakes you can see in the replay
Logan the ring card girl lost her job for saying they could see that Kos faked it
and daley barely bonked him on the back of the head, less than a slap really, wasnt shit but a ‘fuck you’ to a cunt rag who deserved it
I wonder if this Wendell dude knows how to do anything besides stand n wang, because Paul likes to whine when anyone has any other skills.
They’re both cunt rags. If Kos deserved that sucker punch, Daley also deserved what he got.
Hope it was all worth it.
Paul got the KO and retired.
Shame how things went. Had a lot of potential and an exciting style. Hope he retires with some money.
The nick Diaz fight will go down as one of the best in all mma history imo
Sure he might be a bit of a road man that sucker punched another asshole but I still respect Semtex and still a fan
Curious ending. Not sure why Giacomo got up without protecting himself. Oh well, he got slept.
Looks like he was rocked trying to return punches
Damn that was a brutal finish. Always had an exciting style. Was always a fan.
Kos was also talking a lot of shit to Daley during the fight.
Nice!
Very exciting fighter with a fitting nickname who always brought it.
There is a reason for that. After he punched Koscheck, Dana went up to him and asked him if he still wanted to be in the UFC, he shrugged and was like “whatever”. So Dana got butt hurt and banned him.