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This Saturday sees Bellator make a trip overseas to Dublin, Ireland, as the world’s second-biggest MMA promotion presents Bellator 217: Gallagher vs. Graham. If last weekend’s two Bellator cards were pretty strong, well, this one is the exact opposite.
The UFC’s European-based cards aren’t always the strongest but they at least tend to see some top prospects or under-the-radar contenders on show. Bellator’s Irish show on the other hand simply doesn’t look good at all on paper. Sure, the fights could be fun, but the fact that the four-fight main card contains just one fighter with a Wikipedia page – UFC washout Charlie Ward – is a pretty damning indictment of the roster overall.
Here are the predicted outcomes for Bellator 217: Gallagher vs. Graham.
#1 James Gallagher vs. Steven Graham
Quite how Bellator came up with this as a viable main event for this show is anyone’s guess really. It’s pretty obvious which horse Scott Coker and company are backing here, and really it’s unsurprising; James Gallagher has been pushed by Bellator as a potential star since he arrived in the promotion in 2016, largely based around his penchant for talking a lot of trash prior to his fights.
This trash-talking style has seen people compare him to his teammate at SBG Ireland, Conor McGregor, but judging on his fights he’s got little in common with ‘The Notorious One’. He appears to enjoy striking, but while he has semi-decent hands and some excellent leg kicks, his use of range isn’t the best – meaning he’s quite often open to being tagged by counter shots, as we saw in his most recent fight, a loss to Ricky Bandejas that went viral due to Gallagher’s pre-fight taunting.
Where ‘The Strabanimal’ really excels, however, is in his grappling. Gallagher isn’t the greatest wrestler in the world, probably because his native Ireland isn’t a traditional wrestling country, but he still possesses a very quick double leg shot, and he’s incredibly dangerous on the ground, particularly when he can take a foe’s back. At just 22 years old, he still has room to improve, but 6 of his 7 wins coming by submission is impressive in itself.
It’s pretty clear to me that the idea behind this fight with Steven Graham is purely Bellator’s idea of throwing Gallagher a bone and giving him what ought to be an easy win. Graham, who is 5-3 and hasn’t fought in over a year, has very little footage available and the little that is doesn’t paint an impressive picture, no offense intended.
The fights available on Youtube appear to show a decent grappler with really questionable striking defense – essentially, he appears to be a fighter who shouldn’t be any kind of threat to Gallagher, who essentially needs time to develop his striking before making a run towards the upper echelon of even Bellator’s thin 135lbs division.
Graham could win this fight I guess – everyone’s got a puncher’s chance assuming they’re decently trained – but it’d be a huge upset if he did pull it off. Instead, I can see Gallagher throwing out some feeler strikes before taking him down and submitting him. The Irish crowd will love it but it won’t make Gallagher ready for another run at the top – at least not yet, as he’s got plenty of time to get there.
The Pick: Gallagher via first round submission
#2 Peter Queally vs. Myles Price
It’d be hard to blame anyone outside of Ireland for admitting they’ve never heard of either of these fighters, but this one should get the crowd into things at least. It’s a fight with a personal grudge, as Peter Queally is a training partner of Conor McGregor at SBG Ireland, while Price used to fight under the same banner – but now works alongside McGregor’s bitter rival Khabib Nurmagomedov at American Kickboxing Academy.
Queally for his part has labeled Price a “traitor” and a “rat” for his move to the States, but Price has retorted that when he scheduled the move to AKA, the McGregor/Nurmagomedov fight hadn’t even been signed, and the move was purely for the good of his career. Who knows really?
As far as a pick goes, it’s hard to say. Both men have similar records – Price is 10-7, Queally is 11-4 – and both men appear to have a similar fighting style, picking at their opponents from the outside before sudden rushes of offense from closer range. At a glance, Queally seems to have more power in his hands, but then neither man has been stopped by strikes before regardless.
In terms of experience, Price has fought the tougher opponents, but then the well-known fighters he’s faced – Colin Fletcher, Norman Parke, Ali Maclean – have all beaten him. Essentially, this is a pick-em fight as far as I’m concerned; I simply don’t know a lot about either man, and the footage on them doesn’t really give any true insight as to who will win.
In the end, I’m going with Queally purely because he seems more pumped up for the fight – although that could easily play into Price’s hands if he can stay calm while Queally gets overly aggressive.
The Pick: Queally via first round KO
#3 Richie Smullen vs. Adam Gustab
This Featherweight clash between Ireland’s Richie Smullen and Poland’s Adam Gustab features another pair of fighters who are massively inexperienced. Smullen would probably have the advantage in that area; another product of SBG Ireland, he took part in Season 27 of The Ultimate Fighter in 2018, not that many would remember it – probably because nobody watched that season.
At any rate, Smullen’s TUF run was hardly memorable anyway. Picked second as a Lightweight by Daniel Cormier, he was forced to pull out of his fight due to cramps in his calves and was essentially accused of mentally struggling by Dana White. The UFC did give him a chance after the reality tapings were over, but he looked hugely overmatched and was quickly submitted by Luis ‘Violent Bob Ross’ Pena.
Judging by his fight footage, like his teammate James Gallagher, Smullen is more of a grappler than a striker, although he seems willing to trade and throws some nasty leg kicks. It’s his ground game that appears dangerous to me, though; his takedowns from the clinch look solid and judging by two heel hook wins in his 3 victories – as well as a Palhares-like willingness to dive for a leg – he’s got some dangerous leglocks up his sleeve too.
In terms of what Gustab offers, footage on him appears to show a pretty decent offensive striker and wrestler, but where he’s clearly lacking is in defense. Judging on what I’ve seen, he leads with his chin, is way too willing to trade wildly and rely on his toughness, and on the ground he seems open to be caught in submissions – his most recent fight against Declan McAleenan, for instance, saw him pretty much land in a triangle choke during a takedown.
To me this looks like another softball in favor of the Irish fighter; you can’t call Smullen a massive favorite simply because he just isn’t that experienced, but this looks like a fight he should win comfortably using his submission game, particularly as dropping to 145lbs for the first time, you’d expect him to be the bigger, stronger fighter.
The Pick: Smullen via first round submission
#4 Charlie Ward vs. Jamie Stephenson
Another student of John Kavanagh at the SBG Ireland gym, Ward rose to fame in 2016 for perhaps the most unfortunate reason in MMA history – he defeated an opponent by the name of Joao Carvalho via TKO, and Carvalho later died due to injuries sustained in the fight. It’s probably to Ward’s credit that he didn’t give up on the sport there and then – many other fighters probably would’ve and for fair reason.
At any rate, a few months after the fight Ward found himself in the UFC but looked overmatched by both Abdul Razak Alhassan and Galore Bofando, both of whom finished him by TKO in the first round. Undeterred, Ward then moved to Bellator where he’s won two straight fights – including a controversial one that saw his teammate and cornerman Conor McGregor illegally enter the cage.
Ward appears to be a hard-hitting brawler with some takedowns and ground-and-pound in his arsenal, but his lack of experience and recent fight footage makes him a tricky fighter to judge. There’s only so much you can assume from two wins in Bellator against overmatched opponents with losing records, after all.
As for Stephenson, footage on the Durham-based fighter is very sparse, and with a record of 4-2 he’s not the most experienced either. From what I’ve seen, he’s very much a grappling-based fighter with some decent takedowns and clinch work, but his striking defense seems to be wanting. That’s worrying as while Ward appears to be one-dimensional, he does hit pretty hard.
Again, I can’t see that Bellator would want to book an Irish fighter in a truly difficult match at home, and so I see Ward fending off some takedown attempts before using his punches to take Stephenson out later in the fight.
The Pick: Ward via second round KO
