Paul Daley’s near two-decade run in mixed martial arts will soon come to an end.
Daley announced Monday, The MMA Hour , that he has one last fight with Bellator in May 13, U.K. and will then hang up his four-ounce gloves.
“It’s my retirement fight,” explained the English welterweight on The MMA Hour .. After many years of playing the sport, I have a sore back and am tired every day.
“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 do not want to become one of the fighters that is constantly being knocked out by younger men. I want to be a guy who goes out when I want to go out.”
Daley (43-18-2) isn’t sure yet who he will face in the bout, but noted that he has been given a short list of potential opponents.
The decision to leave MMA was not difficult, Daley said. He has thought about it for a long time and Semtex said he knew Bellator would be his last MMA home. Daley said that he had even considered his win over Sabah Homasi in April 2021 as his retirement fight. However, he felt it important that his final fight be held in the U.K. and this was not possible last year due to COVID -19 restrictions.
“Homasi was going to be my last fight, but Bellator wanted to put it in America, and I don’t think the U.K. at the time were allowing shows, people to travel over for productions to produce a show over here,” Daley said. “So yeah, that was going to be my last fight. They offered Jason Jackson with title implications to me, so that I accepted that fight. But then, it didn’t work out my way. So I owe my fans and my family to get this final fight here in U.K .”
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Daley defeated Homasi in a wild one-round brawl that made the short list for 2021 Fight of the Year, but then lost a grinding affair against Jackson — and “Semtex” realized in retrospect that, even in the moment, his heart simply wasn’t into it against Jackson.
” I don’t feel like saying that, but it’s true,” Daley stated. Although I tried to stand up, and wanted to display a bit of my ground skills with kimuras, my feelings coming into and after the fight were one of “just giving a damn” and that was my attitude, What do you know? So [what if] I lost? There have been many fights that I lost. Even with Bellator offering the title implications and the carrot that it might be, the fight was not going my way. I did not want to make the extra effort to improve the scorescards.
“I think this might be what I’m looking for. Maybe I haven’t felt like I’ve had the pressure for a while, since [the Michael Page fight] in the grand prix tournament — I haven’t had that kind of pressure, so I’ve not really wanted to train or been motivated to train. This being the final fight, my family, friends and neighbors will be there to watch it. It’ll definitely be my best .”
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Daley added that although he is hanging up his MMA gloves, he plans to keep his options open for other opportunities in combat sports. He suggested that it was possible that something similar could be in the making to those spectacles being promoted by Triller and the Paul brothers’ push for big-name crossover bookings.
” The thing on the table, Daley stated. It will be more spectacle than any .”
A pioneer of the early U.K. MMA scene, Daley competed for a who’s who of promotions over his 19 years in the sport, fighting for the UFC, Bellator, Strikeforce, EliteXC, Pancrase, and more. Known as one of the most fearsome welterweight knockout artists of his era, “Semtex” picked up wins over the likes of Jorge Masvidal, Martin Kampmann, and Lorenz Larkin, among many others, and enters his final fight having won three of his last four.
Most important of all, his sacrifice to the game was not in vain. Daley stated that he would retire from a financially secure position and not one that might lead to financial trouble later on.
” I’ve been working for [retirement] since a while,” he stated. I’ve seen a lot of fights. Bellator has treated me well while I’ve been there.
“So I put things in place so that when I do call it a day, I can do so comfortably.”
