James Gallagher Says His Mindset Changed Following First Loss

James Gallagher believes the first loss of his professional mixed martial arts career was an eye opener.

Back in August, Gallagher make his bantamweight debut against Ricky Bandejas. It was a tall order for Gallagher to meet a prospect as talented as Bandejas coming off knee surgery. Bandejas ended up scoring a highlight reel knockout in the first round.

The SBG Ireland standout recently appeared on MMAFighting.com‘s Eurobash podcast. On the show, Gallagher talked about what losing to Bandejas did for him:

“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s changed my mindset on the reasons why I want to [fight]. When I say it’s changed my mindset, it’s made me want to do it even more. There’s nothing that’s going to stop me. I wake up every f*cking day and I work my bollocks off and I’ve never wanted it as much in my life. My reason why has changed. I can see the way people have fell off and I see that’s because of their reasons why they want to earn money through fighting, why they want to get big and why they want to win world titles.”

Gallagher will look to rebound on Feb. 23. He’ll be taking on Steven Graham in the main event of Bellator 218 in Dublin, Ireland.