James Gallagher has made a name for himself under the Bellator MMA banner, with the featherweight making an impressive debut back in late 2016 against Mike Cutting and continuing to build up his stock with wins over Anthony Taylor (Bellator 169), Steven Graham (Bellator 217), Chinzo Machida (Bellator 180), and most recently, Roman Salazar (227).
The 23-year-old has only suffered one setback in his career thus far, which was against Ricky Bandejas at Bellator 204; however, that night was still a game changing moment for the young star as he reveals on the Eurobash podcast that he was actually contacted by the UFC (Transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting):
“They came in after the Ricky fight and were like, ‘We’re going to make you a big star,’” Gallagher states. “I just got a voice note sent to me by my management; it was from the matchmaker for the UFC. He sent it over and it was a big 15-minute voice note. It was kind of like, ‘We want to do this,’ and, ‘We can see the potential,’ and they’re going to do this and they were going to do that.”
Despite the promise of being made into a big star, Gallagher ultimately decided to stay with Bellator as the company made him an offer that he couldn’t simply refuse:
“Then, the contract Bellator offered me after the Steven Graham fight, it was the main event in Dublin, after that I was sorted. Well, I wasn’t sorted, but there wasn’t any other way that I was going. The contract wasn’t even up and they put this on the table, like, ‘Do you want that?’ and I was like, ‘F*cking right I do.’ No one was offering any better than that and I don’t think anyone will for a while”
Check out the full interview where Gallagher talks about his cancelled fight against Callum Ellenor, along with several other topics regarding his MMA career.