James Gallagher took a swing at Mike Kimbel before being separated at Bellator media day (video)

James Gallagher allegedly walked up to Mike Kimbel at a media day for Bellator media day in London on Thursday and punched him square in the face. 

According to Gallagher, he was justified, as Kimbel had been mouthing off to him on social media. That, however, wasn’t what made Gallagher take a swing at him. The Irishman insists it was Kimbel’s disrespectful comments aimed it his mother that pushed him over the edge.

“He was saying my name all the time, running me down, saying a lot of hateful, annoying things. But that’s cool. Say what you want about me. I understand the fight game,” Gallagher said to MMA Junkie.

“I posted up a picture of me and my mum coming to visit me in Dublin. I brought her out for dinner, and we got a picture outside the restaurant. I was like, ‘Such a good weekend seeing my mother.’ And he screenshotted it and put it up and goes, ‘She should have swallowed the sperm cells that have made this.'”

Say what you want about Gallagher, who is headlining the Bellator Europe 7 fight card opposite Cal Ellenor on Feb. 22 in Dublin, but degrading his mother was a bridge too far. 

“For me as a young man, I don’t disrespect women like that,” Gallagher said. “That’s the lowest of the lowest. I would never disrespect any grown woman, nevermind my mother. Not only has he disrespected a woman that I know, he disrespected a woman that I love to bits. A woman that has made me the man I am.

“… When I saw him today for the first time, I didn’t say nothing else to him. I just walked up and smacked him with a left hook on the chin, and that was that. Don’t speak about my mother again.”

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(Courtesy of MMAFightingonSBN)