By:  | February 28, 2023 8:27 am

It sounds like Danielle Kelly is bored of being matched with mixed martial artists. She continued her undefeated streak in ONE Championship win over Ayaka Miura last weekend.

But given Kelly’s credentials as a BJJ black belt some fans were disappointed that she didn’t win by decision. In her defense the 27 year old points out that there was a significant size difference and also says she was confused by the rules,

“I’m proud of it (because) I’m literally 10-15lbs lighter than her. I agreed to a catchweight with her and she’s really good (but) the rules were a little confusing because I was engaging the whole time and she kept stepping away because my ground game is better.”

Kelly does admit that she was ‘disappointed’ not to finish the fight inside the distance,

“I kept trying to take her back, I kept attacking her neck. I’m obviously disappointed. (because) I really tried to submit but she’s really strong and really good. It was fun.”

Worthy adversary

Two of her three ONE Championship bouts have been against mixed martial artists. Mei Yamaguchi also took Kelly the distance and it sounds like she wants to face some worthy adversaries.

Kelly would like a rematch with fellow BJJ black belt Jessa Khan. She lost the first bout in 2021 but says there were extenuating circumstances,

“I mentioned Jessa (Khan) just because I know she’s signed to ONE.  I had history with her about two years ago and I feel like I wasn’t really 100% and I feel like competing with other jiu jitsu people is what I’m used to. More flowy. And we’re the same weight so I’m really motivated to get it back because I’ve been working really hard to get that match and work hard on myself.”

One condition

However she does have one condition. Khan has yet to make her long awaited ONE Championship debut and Kelly says she needs to face someone else on one of the promotion’s cards before the rematch can happen,

“I haven’t seen her compete yet for ONE so I would like to see that if we’re going to compete for the title.”

Miura is a third degree judo black belt and earned a shot at strawweight champion Xiong Jing Nan. It sounds like the Japanese fighter won Kelly’s respect even if she didn’t come close to winning the fight,

“I guess the most annoying thing was she would squeeze my neck or my head. My arm’s pretty flexible so every time I just kept turning my elbow down so I think the only thing that was really annoying was my head was getting squeezed and it was her hip and her arm on my head squeezing. It wasn’t fun so I felt that a lot. I’m just really dead.”