After playing catchup, Bellator 163's Paul Daley vows to be ahead of Derek Anderson

To Bellator welterweight Paul Daley, a loss to ex-champ Douglas Lima is one of those things where it’s best to not think about it too much.

Only a few seconds after the opening bell rang for Daley’s fight four months ago with ex-champ Douglas Lima, he caught a punch that knocked him to the mat. From there on, he said, he was playing catchup.

After five rounds, he saw the referee raise Lima’s hand, the winner via unanimous decision.

“It takes a little while sometimes to clear your mind and really adjust when you’ve been rocked,” Daley (38-14-2 MMA, 4-1 BMMA), who next meets Derek Anderson (14-2 MMA, 5-2 BMMA) at Bellator 163, told MMAjunkie. “Lima is a tough guy, a big guy, a former champion and a fantastic fighter. I take nothing too much from it.”

The fact that the fight was received favorably by fans is enough for Daley, whose loss snapped a five-fight winning streak and might have cost him a shot at the title.

“If nobody commentated how good the fight was or the positive they’ve seen in my performance, then I would have been disappointed,” he said. “But losing is part of the game.”

When you’ve been fighting as long as Daley and you run into an insurmountable obstacle, you just take the lessons you can, pack up your bags and move on to the next bout. The heavy-handed Brit is enough of a name to get quick opportunities, anyway, so it might be easier for him to grade on a curve when it comes to his time in Bellator.

“I take a look at the fight, analyze it and see where I feel I can grow on and change for the next fight,” Daley said. “It’s great to have the main event position. I wasn’t too disappointed.”

Anderson is definitely not in any sort of favored position, but he’d certainly like to get there with an upset for the Spike-televised fight on Friday at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.

The up-and-comer took the unusual route of moving up in weight for an opportunity in his usual division, taking Daley to stay busy while hunting for a title eliminator against Josh Thomson (22-8 MMA, 2-0 BMMA). Facing one of the most experienced opponents of his career, it’s a strategy that could pay off big or end in disaster.

Daley gives Anderson credit for making the move. He had been targeting a fight with another marquee name before Bellator offered the bout, so their interests aligned. They both want to stay busy en route to the next opportunity.

“I would have preferred the Melvin Guillard fight – it would have been awesome,” Daley said. “I love when people call me out because it gets everybody’s attention. It was a fight he asked for and everyone knows I’m going to accept because I’m a real fighter. I was a bit disappointed when his situation turned out the way it did.

“Hopefully when he comes back there will still be interest in the fight and we’re both in a position to take the fight. That’s one that’s a fun fight and it’s one that got people’s attention. Derek wasn’t on the radar. A fight’s a fight and of course I would have preferred to fight a bigger name. Someone that could lead me towards the title again. But I wanted to fight before the end of the year and this is what I got.”

Daley has heard it all from opponents who’d like to pad their resume. Anderson claims he’s an easy win. But he can only shrug at the thought and point to his, which is filled with names that have been knocked out by his hands.

“There is no stepping stone in Paul ‘Semtex’ Daley,” he said. “He will find that out. I’ve fought these guys before and they’ve done well getting up there and fighting me, but the same thing will happen as has happened to everyone else. They’ve all seen an opportunity but it doesn’t end terribly well for them. This will be another one of those occasions. Unfortunately for him he bit off more than he can chew.”

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