Saturday 23 February 2019 08:56, UK
Billed as the biggest all-Irish fight in the history of MMA, there won't be a lack of bad blood on the line when Peter Queally and Myles Price finally throw down on Saturday night at Bellator 217, live on Sky Sports.
A meeting of the two has long been touted, with two previous bouts not coming to fruition. Nonetheless, the duo will finally face off in Dublin on Saturday.
Price (10-7) was formerly a member of John Kavanagh's famed SBG stable. However, the lightweight brawler since went his own way, opting to join Team Ryano.
With the Kilkenny fighter aiming to branch out, he went in search of improving his own game. This led him to the AKA gym, where he trained with Khabib Nurmagomedov in the lead-up to the Russian's UFC 229 bout with Conor McGregor.
"I did grow a lot as a fighter for sure," Price said of his time training with Khabib. "You grow a lot of confidence within your own team and you go away and you train with the best guys in the world.
"Especially with a prestige name like AKA. I also was very welcomed by the team.
"I feel like that helped me progress even more and build my confidence even more and brought my game on. At my level, I'm only going to progress little bits that add to my game overall. Yes, I improved overall, but as I've said, I'm not an NCAA wrestler within three months but I'm much better at dealing with them."
It's fair to say that the move wasn't a hit with Queally.
"Everyone knows what he has done," Queally fumed, speaking to Sky Sports. "People can say what they want, but Ireland's greatest sportsman was preparing for the biggest moment of his career. And this guy (Price), an Irishman, former team-mate, spent his own money to travel 5,000 miles to go help his opponent.
"You tell me what that is. What's that? It's a rat, we call that in Ireland. It's very obvious what he has done and there's no explanation needed as to why we are fighting. And that's why this fight is so popular. People know why we're getting in there.
"It'll be my crowd. He will get booed out of the building. Mark my words. This will not be a split crowd. This is my crowd. He is not an Irishman."
"It's definitely the fight with the most hype in domestic Irish MMA by a long long way. There's never been two Irish fighters that have generated this much interest in a domestic fight."
While Queally was eager to big up the bout, Price took the opposite approach, playing down the significance of the build-up:
"It's the same as any other fight to me," he explained. "The hype behind the fight doesn't take away from the fact that it's still against a challenging opponent in a cage for three 'fives'. I'm heading in to put on a performance and it's that simple.
"Every fight is the biggest fight of your career. No matter what the illusion of the media around it is. I know that every fight is as important as the last.
"You're going to naturally feel animosity because there's somebody that's trying to say discrediting things about you that you don't necessarily agree with. That's his opinion. I don't judge. If you have an opinion about me, that's totally cool. I don't take any heed to it. I don't care really. He's entitled to views om things and you're entitled to yours and that's it."
However, while the duo don't see eye-to-eye, it is clear there is a mutual respect there.
"I've taken a few jibes, he has. But there is respect," said the 11-4-1 SBG star. "I've never once, if you go back through anything I've said, I've never once said anything about his fighting ability. He's a good fighter. A very good fighter actually. I'm better. That's important to mention.
"I expect him to have trained as hard as he's ever trained for this, but I have too. The fans are in for a knock on Saturday night is my prediction."
With months of talking almost over, the duo will finally face off when the cage door slams shut in the 3Arena, Dublin.
