{"id":247887,"date":"2025-10-29T12:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/247887\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:51:07","slug":"gallagher-on-last-minute-fight-cancellation-they-f-ked-me-around-all-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/247887\/","title":{"rendered":"Gallagher on last minute fight cancellation \u2018They f–ked me around all day\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conor McGregor teammate James Gallagher once seemed like he\u2019d be the next big fighter to come out of Ireland, but numerous fight cancellations over the past five years (plus this incident)<\/a> have taken the shine off his star. So when it was announced that the Bellator and PFL veteran\u2019s fight at Absolute Championship Akhmat 194 in Dubai had been called off at the last minute, it wasn\u2019t too surprising. But the circumstances surrounding the situation were certainly unique.<\/p>\n

During the event, his opponent Ali AlQaisi came into the cage and announced on the house mic that Gallagher had refused to fight him because he \u2018did not like the warm up area.\u2019 That certainly painted \u201cThe Strabanimal\u201d out to be a diva, but Gallagher says it was just the culmination of a day of difficulty dealing with ACA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis room, there\u2019s no mats, no nothing, and all the blue corner [fighters] are in the room,\u201d he explained on the Energized Show. \u201cSo you couldn\u2019t swing a cat in it. I text the head [of ACA], \u2018Listen. I need mats.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey then tell me that my fight has now moved from 5PM to 9PM that night,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201c\u2018Go back to the hotel, get some food, rest up, and then come back two hours before your fight to get warmed up.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Sweet. Well, I need mats in the room to warm up in, and I need an area where I can actually move around in.\u2019 And they\u2019re like, \u2018It\u2019ll be sorted.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I go back to the hotel which is five minutes away, sit down, have food with my team, go to have a nap in the room. As I lay down, they\u2019re going, \u2018The fights have moved faster. You have to get back here now within ten minutes to get your hands wrapped.\u2019 So I\u2019m sitting there, full belly, after they told me that I wouldn\u2019t be on for another four or five hours\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake the way over, go into the change rooms,\u201d he continued. \u201cStill no mats in there with f–king 50 people in this little room where you couldn\u2019t move around with nothing. Everybody\u2019s wrapping hands. There\u2019s chairs around. All this kind of thing. Wrap the hands and text them going, \u2018Listen, is there a place here for mats? Or even just a spot where I can move around in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

ACA then moved Gallagher to a small tile floor boiler room littered with bricks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t looking to have flowers and chocolate there kind of thing,\u201d Gallagher said. \u201cDo you know what I mean? I was just looking for somewhere suitable to get stretched, to get mobilized, to get warmed up, and get ready to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo as that\u2019s happening, one of the main guys come up and shouts at my team in his face, \u2018What\u2019s the problem? I\u2019m this close!\u2019 Like, insinuating that he was gonna fight with one of my teammates. So after that, the team just decided to message my coach back home and they were like, \u2018Listen, James, you\u2019re not fighting \u2026 They\u2019ve f\u2014ked you around all day, \u2014ked you around all day yesterday, and it just it cannot happen like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher summed up his corner\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You\u2019ve been around the block, and you\u2019re not coming over here to get caught cold and to go out there to fight one of their boys who has a room to warm up in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the apparent aggression levied at Gallagher\u2019s team, James insists this was just a miscommunication and hopes to work with ACA again.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did meet with the the president and the vice president of ACA, who are very respectful people who understood what I was saying,\u201d he said. \u201cSo they apologized for it, and I also apologize to them for not fighting. We were at a mutual understanding of why it was. They reassured me that this \u2026 was just one of those things that happens, and we hope that we can rebook the fight in Russia, December 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 13-3 Gallagher is 1-2 over his last three fights, with three fight cancellations mixed in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conor McGregor teammate James Gallagher once seemed like he\u2019d be the next big fighter to come out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,50911,33601,638,82],"class_list":["post-247887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-international-mma-news-results","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}