James Gallagher will make his debut in the bantamweight division in South Dakota at Bellator 204 on Aug. 17 against promotional newcomer, Ricky Bandejas.
Sources confirmed the fight with MMA Fighting on Wednesday following an initial report fromSanford Pentagon.
Gallagher (7-0-0) has been out of action since his memorable first round submission win overChinzo Machida at Bellator: NYC last June.
“The Strabanimal” suffered knee injury that forced him out of what was slated to be his first promotional main event against Jeremiah Labiano at Bellator 187 in Dublin. After recovering from his knee injury, a subsequent hand injury ruled him out of his Bellator 196 meeting with Hungarian prospect, Adam Borics.
Gallagher has gone 4-0 with Bellator since being signed as a blue-chip prospect in 2016, with his wins coming against Mike Cutting, Anthony Taylor, Kirill Medvedovski and, most recently, Machida.
Nick Catone product Bandejas (10-1-0) signed on the dotted line with Bellator last week after a stellar run with CFFC, as first reported by MMAJunkie.com. In his last outing, Bandejas stoppedNick Mamalis in the fourth round to reclaim the promotion’s bantamweight title at CFFC 69.
Every single contest of Bandejas’ career thus far has been contested under the CFFC banner. He has tasted defeat just once when he met Nick Pace in his first CFFC title fight in Oct. 2015. Pace won the fight via first round submission.
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