Welcome to the wacky world of mixed martial arts, where contradictory information bounces around the news cycle like the metal orbs in a pinball machine.
Halo PR, the British Public Relations company who does work with Paul Daley, put out an odd press today release saying that Paul Daley was in advanced negotiations to headline a BAMMA card on February 26th at the Manchester Evening News arena in the UK, a venue with a capacity of nearly 23,000. This news arrived at approximately the same time as Daley’s facebook alarmed the world that he was signing his next fight contract and was very pleased with his opponent. He also stated he that the announcement would make fans “in the UK Division” very happy.
MMAFA.tv contacted BAMMA officials, who claim that Paul Daley was a lock for the BAMMA card. However, officials declined to give the name of Paul Daley’s opponent. They assured that the opponent had been “penciled in” and no other names were being considered. In fact, an opponent had apparently been settled on nearly 2 weeks ago. BAMMA claims a press release is on the way.
Strikeforce’s PR head Mike Afromowitz stated that Strikeforce officials had not heard a word about the proposed BAMMA bout.
Paul Daley claims that he is not fighting for BAMMA and is instead remaining under the Strikeforce banner. Daley doesn’t know what prompted the announcement from the Halo PR team but assures that a correction will be made in the coming days.
Still, sources in the UK MMA scene confirmed to MMAFA.tv that an agreement between BAMMA and Daley has been known about for weeks and that an opponent has been aggressively sought in that time.
Daley was caught in the cross-hairs of a promotional dispute in late 2008 when he fought under the Cage Warriors banner despite being the Cage Rage champion at the time. Cage Rage was under ownership of ProElite. Daley cited mistreatment from Cage Rage as well as not being technically under contract as reasons for fighting in the alternate promotion. Vitriol was exchanged between the competing promotions and a cease and desist was ordered yet ignored.