Bellator Dublin results: James Gallagher, Michael Page score first-round finishes

James Gallagher won in just 35 seconds in the main event of Bellator Dublin. | Esther Lin, MMA Fighting

James Gallagher’s return to Dublin was better than he could have predicted.

Headlining Bellator’s event in Ireland against late-notice replacement Roman Salazar in a bout at 3Arena, Gallagher only needed 35 seconds to get his winning streak up to three under the Bellator banner.

Gallagher came out strong, landing a beautiful flying knee right away. Salazar took Gallagher on his back on the ground in the process, but ended up locked in a guillotine choke. It took a few seconds, but Salazar eventually tapped.

Gallagher, now 6-1 in Bellator, jump off the cage to celebrate his victory with his teammate and friend Conor McGregor.

“I’m absolutely bullet proof,” Gallagher said after the win. “I don’t care what happens. I don’t care what gets in my way. I will run through walls to make this happen for me. They can say what they want… I do not give one f**k. I’ve worked my balls off for this moment. And no one, and I mean f***ing no one is going to take this away from me. Dublin, what the f**k’s happening?!”

Michael Page wanted to impress in the co-main event of Bellator Dublin after suffering the first defeat of his MMA career in May, and he didn’t need much time to do so against Richard Kiely.

Page started the fight doing what he does best, which is move fast and taunt his opponent. Kiely wasn’t having any of it though, showing him the finger as he danced around the cage and prompting referee Dan Miragliotta to stop the fight and call both fighters to fight seriously.

As soon as the contest restarted, Page threw Kiely down and picked his shots patiently before joining him on the ground to land elbows to the body and to the face. When “MVP” started mocking his opponent again, Miragliotta stopped the action and deducted him a point, apparently for taunting.

That ended up helping Page, though. Back on his feet, “MVP” landed a vicious jumping knee that rocked and dropped Kielly. Instead of moving forward to land more strikes, Page chose to mock his reaction while Miragliotta called the TKO victory.

“He kept ducking his head, it was an obvious shot,” Page said after the win. “This is exactly what I expected. I hardly even trained for the guy.”

The 32-year-old welterweight said he doesn’t care who’s next for him, as long as it guarantees him a rematch with former welterweight titleholder Douglas Lima, who knocked him out back in May in a 170-pound tournament bout.

“I’m chasing one person. One person, and one person only,” Page said. “He gave me that… He took that ‘0’ away from me. Douglas Lima, I have so much respect for you, but I’m coming back.”

Peter Queally and Ryan Scope opened the main card portion of Bellator Dublin with a bang — and one of the best comebacks of the year by “The Showstopper”.

Scope, who was hoping to come back to the winning column from a close split decision defeat to Patricky Freire in February, pressured Queally against the cage early, but Queally caught his attention with a couple of overhands and a good uppercut.

Queally was knocked down in the first seconds of the second stanza with a left high kick and had to dig deep to escape from multiple submission attempts and a heavy ground and pound from Scope.

The 30-year-old Irish veteran swept Scope and told him to get back up. As soon as both fighters were on their feet, Queally landed a good combo to the body and the head that dropped “Big Baby” and forced the referee to stop the contest.

He caught me with a beautiful shot. I didn’t even knew what that was until I saw it on the replay,” Queally said after the win. “And I was as hurt and I’ve ever been, in sparring or in a fight, but I stayed on it. 25 fights, I’ve never been finished. It’s not gonna happen in Dublin, that’s for sure.”

Click here for full Bellator Dublin and Bellator 227 results.