Issue 050
June 2009
Welterweight, Paul Daley is a modern day ronin. It doesn’t matter who’s paying or where, so long as the fight is right and you make it worth his while he’ll be there to thrown down. From Slovenia to Japan and Canada to the UK, Daley has fought around the world.
For some fighters, life outside of the UFC can be tough. The lack of exposure makes it harder to get those all important sponsorship deals, and its tough to find an organisation who will promote you in the same way the biggest show in the world can. But for Paul Daley, life is pretty good. “Financially, it’s better to fight on the UFC or bigger recognised shows,” he says. “But I enjoy the type of career I’m having, and hope to continue. I travel around to different shows and meet different people. I suppose it’s picking the right fights at the right time. I just want to fight regularly and where I get paid best.”
He trains alongside fighters such as Dan Hardy and Andre Winner, and while his team mates enjoy the benefits of mainstream press coverage, Daley’s not too bothered that some fans don’t know who he is, even when he’s considered by some as the UK’s number one welterweight.
“It would only be the newcomers who don’t know who I am, the guys who have been following MMA since the UFC came to the UK, but before that Cage Rage was on TV and it still gets re-run, so I still have people coming up to me saying ‘you’re that cage fighter’. I don’t get huge recognition outside the core MMA fans but it’s there. I did a lot of things other MMA fighters didn’t, like the Daily Star and The Sun, I was on radio – all before the UFC even got here.”
Daley likes the freedom of being able to fight for who he likes, where he likes, and the Strikeforce, EliteXC, MFC, Cage Rage and soon to be Affliction veteran has his eye on a few organisations out there he’d like to fight for. “There are loads of shows doing really well right now, DREAM, Sengoku, Strikeforce. I’ve always said I want to fight in a Grand Prix, I want one of those big cheesy cheques and the stuff to fall down from the sky!”
Based mainly in England, Daley divides his time between training at the Rough House gym in Nottingham, but also trains alongside Melvin Manhoef in Holland. “A Dutch friend of mine asked me the other day, why I do go all the way over there to train? It’s good for me, I come back from Holland a thousand times sharper, the impact it has on me is awesome, and they look after me really well.”
The welterweight will need to be sharp for his next fight, against the tough Xtreme Couture fighter Jay Hieron on Affliction, in August. “Jay is a tough guy, but I don’t see him having much success in this fight, him being a wrestler with a glass jaw, it doesn’t add up too well for him. My takedown defence is something I’m consistently working on, plus I’m getting more comfortable in a ring, the last four fights I’ve had have been in rings. Hieron’s a great wrestler, a great fighter, a great athlete, but it’s not good to go in with someone who’s got 16 KO’s and you’ve got three losses by KO or TKO.”
Daley is quietly confident that his time will come. He points to fighters such as Jake Shields and Josh Barnett as examples of fighters who comfortably exist outside of the UFC. “My goal is to keep travelling, keep winning, and I know success will come. When I retire I want to be like Jeremy Horn or Travis Fulton, I want 150 fights under my belt. I’ve had 31 fights, I’m 26 years old. My idea for my career is much more than a blast at the UFC, it’s a marathon rather than just a quick sprint through the ranks.
“Look at Fedor and Overeem, you can’t ignore those guys. If people are consistently talking about you, the UFC want those sort of people. I don’t have my eye on the UFC right now, but you can’t ignore something that is recognised everywhere else.”
Paul Daley spoke with Hywel Teague
