Irish mixed martial artist Paddy McCorry’s victory over Israel’s Shuki Farage on Saturday may not have been personal, but it was certainly political.
After securing a unanimous decision at Cage Warriors 189 in Rome, McCorry draped himself in a Palestinian flag and said “Free Palestine” before screaming and flexing in celebration.
“Street justice,” followed by an Irish and Palestinian flag, he posted to social media after, along with a clip showing him appearing to yell into Farage’s face as he pummeled the Israeli with the bout’s finishing blows.
Street justice 🇮🇪 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/qjgZt0UmZI
— Paddy McCorry (@PaddyMcCorryMMA) May 31, 2025
In the video, several people in the crowd can be heard chanting “Free, free Palestine.”
According to Cage Warriors, the 27-year-old from West Belfast in Northern Ireland, a more experienced fighter heavily favoured by pundits and bettors,
was dominant “from bell to bell.”
It improved his pro record to 6-1, all since 2021.
For Farage, it was his fifth professional bout since 2017, but his first since a 2022 win over Turkey’s Bugra Alparslan, a more experienced fighter.
His only other win occurred in 2017 when he got Russian Sabit Nasive to tap out. His pro record is now 2-2.
Training out of the Michaelson Brothers gym in Ramla, the six-foot-four Farage is known as “Long Reach” due to his long legs and arms. His background is not MMA, but kickboxing.
“Going to eat some Irish beef !!” his coach, Daniel Michaelson,
posted in Hebrew on Facebook ahead of the bout.
In a podcast interview prior to the event, McCorry
told host Ireland-based SevereMMA
host Paul Hughes that he’d seen Farage boasting about an upset win on an
Instagram account now set to private.
“Just show up and then we’ll see what happens,” McCorry said.
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