Speaking to the media while squinting backstage at the 3Arena on Saturday, Ireland’s own Peter Queally addressed the unfortunate end to his fight with Daniele Miceli at Bellator 299.
An eye poke brought about the finish just 26 seconds into the fight, with Queally unable to continue. That basically meant his walkout was longer than his fight, with the Irish crowd signing The Cranberries Zombie as he entered.
“I think you could see it in me. I was enjoying it. I was enjoying this for once,” Queally (13-8-1, 1NC), a former title challenger at lightweight, said following the 170lb bout. “The last few fights, because I knew I hadn’t trained, the pressure was almost crushing me when people were singing the song to be honest. I know I’m not ready. But this time I was ready. I was ready to kill him. I think you could see it, I was actually enjoying it. And I was going to kill him. I’m just sick now. I’m just sick over it, to be honest.”
The pain from the foul had Queally believing he might have lost an eye. “I felt like my eye had exploded when it happened. I was just unbelievable pain. I actually looked over at John [Kavanagh, SBG Ireland coach], and he made this face. I thought I had lost my eye to be honest. But thankfully it’s just a really bad scratch in my eye, deep in my eye, and there’s a bad cut in my eyelid.”
“I’m okay, I’m just really disappointed.”
In terms of the fight being ruled a No Contest rather than a disqualification, “I don’t care. I’m just really disappointed that the fans got short-changed,” stated Queally. “I don’t really care about me getting a cheap win for that.”
“I don’t think he meant it,” Queally added. “I haven’t seen it, but he doesn’t seem like a bad guy who meant it.”
Watch the full Bellator 299 post-fight press conference with Peter Queally above.
