A fixture in the MMA community for over 15 years has his retirement fight booked. Bellator has booked another big fight for their London card as welterweights Paul Daley (43-18-2) will be taking on Andrey Koreshkov (25-4).
As mentioned, this fight will take place at Bellator London on May 13th. MMA reporter Michael Morgan was the first one to report on the fight and was the first to break the news of Paul Daley’s retirement fight.
Daley isn’t having an easy draw as he takes on the tough Andrey Koreshkov. We just saw Koreshkov this past weekend at Bellator 274 when he took on Chance Rencountre. It was a very quick night at the office for the Russian.
Koreshkov blasted Rencountre with a nasty spinning back kick to the body that broke five ribs. Rencountre went crashing to the canvas and Koreshkov made a massive statement. Enough of a statement where Bellator wanted to give him a really high profiled fight.
Bellator London’s Retirement Fight
That high profiled fight for Koreshkov will come in May when he takes on Daley at Bellator London. Paul Daley is coming home to the UK for his final fight and he didn’t want an easy fight which is how Daley has gone about his MMA career.
He’s always taken on the toughest test even if the matchup on paper was a nightmare. Early on in his career, Daley was known for throwing a punch at Josh Koscheck after their fight ended at UFC 113.
Immediately, the UFC released Daley and he never fought for the promotion again. However, Daley has had stops at all the big MMA promotions since then from Strikeforce to Bellator.
Bellator has been his exclusive home since 2015. Since making this promotion his home, Daley has gone 9-5 and one of those bouts was a kickboxing matchup. Those five losses all came against top competition like Michael Page, Douglas Lima, and Rory MacDonald.
Most recently, Daley lost to the tough Jason Jackson. It’s been quite the career for Daley and he will get a nice sendoff at Bellator London. In his career he’s taken on guys like Nick Diaz, Tyron Woodley, and Jake Shields. It’s been a helluva career and I’ll be excited to watch the legend make his exit in May.