Bellator inks British slugger Paul Daley, debut set for Bellator 72

Bellator just added some knockout power to its competitive welterweight division.

British striker Paul Daley (29-12-2 MMA, 2-3 SF) has signed a multi-fight deal with the organization and debuts against an opponent to be named at next month's Bellator 72 "Summer Series" event.

Daley joins yet another major promotion following stints with the UFC, Strikeforce, EliteXC, MFC, BAMMA, Shark Fights and others.

Bellator 72 takes place July 20 at the USF Sun Dome in Tampa, Fla. The main card airs on MTV2, and Spike.com carries the prelims. It's not clear where Daley will be placed on the fight card.

"I've been a fan of Bellator for a long while," Daley stated. "When this chance came up, I was absolutely ready to make a long term commitment to Bellator. I have my sights set on winning the tournament and winning that Bellator title."

If victorious at Bellator 72, Daley is a surefire candidate to join a season-seven tournament later this year. The only way to win the Bellator welterweight championship, which undefeated Olympic wrestler Ben Askren currently holds, is to win an eight-man tournament to claim a guaranteed title shot.

Strikeforce released Daley from his contract just a week ago. At the time, he stated that he wanted to fight more regularly; with Strikeforce, Daley fought just five times over a five-year period.

Prior to a split-decision loss to Kazuo Misaki in his most recent appearance, the 29-year-old Daley had posted back-to-back decision wins over Jordan Radev and Luigi Fioravanti in outside promotions. However, he went winless in his final three Strikeforce appearances, including a title loss to welterweight champ Diaz in early 2011.

Still, he brings an exciting style to the cage; 20 of his 29 career wins have come via knockout.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/29214/bellator-inks-british-slugger-paul-daley-for-bellator-72.mma

Wow! Bellator is the new strikeforce. The roster gets better every week.

Definitely. They've picked up the pace since Strikeforce declined. Rogers, Minakov, Ryan Martinez, Guillaume DeLorenzi, Rafael Silva and now Daley. Now they need to get us a TV deal in Europe.

Oh, I almost forgot, Mark Godbeer and King Mo as well.

Sonatine wrote:Definitely. They've picked up the pace since Strikeforce declined. Rogers, Minakov, Ryan Martinez, Guillaume DeLorenzi, Rafael Silva and now Daley. Now they need to get us a TV deal in Europe.

Oh, I almost forgot, Mark Godbeer and King Mo as well.

when bellator moves to spike ufc will be in trouble. The future of mma looks promising with bellator in the us, m-1 and ksw in europe, one deep and legend in asia.

Given Zuffa's inability to evolve and adapt, they will find out the hard way what it means by "when a company is cold, they can't do anything right in the eyes of the fans" soon enough, no matter how the bald guy spins it.

Very nice, I was expecting to see him in ONE FC but Bellator isn't slacking at all!

First time poster, been reading the forum for a few weeks though.

Good signing by Bellator and they just keep getting stronger and stonger. Looking forward to the next WW tournament. At the moment it could feature :

Daley, Lima, Amoussou/Baker, Good, Koreshkov, Rickles, Saunders and Taleb.

That is one strong tournament and if anyone comes through that and beats Askren they would easily move in to the top ten WWs in the world.

The thought of Daley vs. Lima excites me.....

Sonatine wrote:The thought of Daley vs. Lima excites me.....

That's the fight that jumped out at me as well, would be a cracker. Wouldn't mind seeing Dlaey Vs Koreshkov or Saunders either. He has planety of good opponents in Bellator so we should see a few cracking fights in the next full season.

Damn, a lot of awesome signings by Bellator.

Looking forward to seeing Daley in the next tournament.

We were all thinking on how Bellator would use their new money and what moves they'd bring, and seriously, they did much better than i expected. Bellator is bringing exciting news everyday. Bjorn nows his business.

Thanks for bringing the news Sonatine. BTW i love your new pic.

Sonatine wrote:Definitely. They've picked up the pace since Strikeforce declined. Rogers, Minakov, Ryan Martinez, Guillaume DeLorenzi, Rafael Silva and now Daley. Now they need to get us a TV deal in Europe.

Oh, I almost forgot, Mark Godbeer and King Mo as well.

Didn't know they signed Godbeer. Awesome.

WW field is going to be even better now, can't wait...

Daley
Foster
Good
Lima
Zaromskis
Amoussou
Taleb
Koreshkov.

What. A. Tournament.

BluebirdMMA wrote:First time poster, been reading the forum for a few weeks though.

Good signing by Bellator and they just keep getting stronger and stonger. Looking forward to the next WW tournament. At the moment it could feature :

Daley, Lima, Amoussou/Baker, Good, Koreshkov, Rickles, Saunders and Taleb.

That is one strong tournament and if anyone comes through that and beats Askren they would easily move in to the top ten WWs in the world.

nice to have you here. Legit tourney lineup, i think psycho has a lot potential and i remember the days when he was hyped as the next wanderlei.

Johan Lofgren wrote:

BluebirdMMA wrote:First time poster, been reading the forum for a few weeks though.

Good signing by Bellator and they just keep getting stronger and stonger. Looking forward to the next WW tournament. At the moment it could feature :

Daley, Lima, Amoussou/Baker, Good, Koreshkov, Rickles, Saunders and Taleb.

That is one strong tournament and if anyone comes through that and beats Askren they would easily move in to the top ten WWs in the world.

nice to have you here. Legit tourney lineup, i think psycho has a lot potential and i remember the days when he was hyped as the next wanderlei.

The only thing I see stopping Amoussou winning this years WW tournament is his cardio, his first round performances are always exciting and domanating but his cardio seems to let him down badly in the 2nd and 3rd. This was evident in his fight with Sam Alvey, the first round was one of the most one sided fights I have seen, second and third Amoussou gassed badly. Baker has looked far from impressive in this tournament to date and if Amoussou can work on his cardio I can see him winning, as you said he has a ton of potential. It would also be interesting to see if Askren can take down someone with good Judo, if not it would be a long night for him.