“His opponent from Stra-bain, Ireland, please welcome James ‘The Strabanimal’ Gallagher!”
The Bellator 204 weigh-in between James Gallagher and Ricky Bandejas was pretty intense, on Thursday, and has set the tone for a much anticipated fight between two men on upward trajectories in their MMA careers.
The pair on Friday night and it will be Gallagher’s first fight in over a year. At 7-0-0 in his pro career, the Strabane native got off to a flyer before injuries halted his progress.
Bandejas is in his way right now and Gallagher, who came up in the game under the tutelage of John Kavanagh, is determined to make short work of him. Ahead of his fight Gallagher told SportsJOE’s Ben Kiely:
“I’m not getting beat. I’ve worked my bollocks off. I’ve worked too hard for this and there’s no one getting in there next weekend and being a patch on me. There’s no one that gets in there that’s laying a glove on me. I’m going to go in there and dominate this fella inside one round.”
MMA Junkie will be one of the many websites and news outlets covering Bellator 204 and, for all their comprehensive coverage of the sport, one fan spotted a glitch as part of their fight previews:
https://twitter.com/colin99222/status/1030225064346701824
Hailing from Strabane in Tyrone, whomever was putting together listed the 21-year-old as being British.
Gallagher was not having that and quickly responded:
Good way to get @MMAjunkie boycotted fuck that. Making mistakes at a high level is acceptable! Don’t dare disrespect me like that! 🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪🇮🇪 https://t.co/CfuEUyxEbn
— james gallagher (@StrabanimalMMA) August 16, 2018
John Morgan, a leading writer with the site, was just as prompt in responding to Gallagher and hitching the flag error to a ‘database issue’.
Sincere apologies, @StrabanimalMMA. Was a database issue that has since been corrected. No disrespect intended. Looking forward to the fight tomorrow night. https://t.co/EfTsIIgNTz
— John Morgan (@JohnMorgan_MMA) August 17, 2018
Gallagher uncircled the wagons and thanked Morgan for seeing to the flag being corrected. Soon after the Irish tricolour was back in full bloom.
https://twitter.com/colin99222/status/1030243311846449152
The bout should be a good one and the face-off after the weigh-in (from 13:50 below) was a nice taster of what is surely to come.
Well worth tuning in for.
