Danielle Kelly’s unusual way of overcoming fight nerves: “I like to watch scary movies the night before”

Experience in martial arts doesn’t just play out in front of the fans come fight night. Newly crowned ONE atomweight submission grappling world champion Danielle Kelly can attest to that.

While there is no doubt that her time spent competing inside the circle served her well at ONE Fight Night 14, the years that she has been competing also help her in other ways.

Competing under the brightest lights in ONE Championship is one thing and Kelly passed that test with flying colours when she scooped the gold versus Jessa Khan inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium on September 29.

Fight week itself is another beast entirely that is impossible to prepare for unless you have built up the experience of doing it. Throughout her career, the 27-year-old competitor has learned little tips and tricks about the pressures of a big matchup and how she can best prepare herself for fight night.

In an appearance on the Chewjitsu Podcast, Danielle Kelly spoke about one specific pastime that she uses to try and take away the nerves and anxiety that this high pressure situation can come with.

Interesting, her way of coping with this situation is by completely taking her mind off of the fact that she is competing the very next day by replacing it with… being scared:

“And then the week of the matches, I'm always nervous. I'm always a nervous person. I'm always anxious. So like, I'm like a hermit. So I just don't like a lot of the attention on me, but as time went on, I felt it's weird…like I like to watch scary movies like the night before or something like that.”

Kelly continued, stating that she has learned throughout her career that taking her mind off of fight night is her best plan for fight week, regardless of what that entails:

“So now I understand, like it’s alright just to do something that distracts you or makes you happy and then everything else doesn't matter, you know. Just to keep myself away from the nerves of fighting.”

Watch the full podcast interview below:

North American viewers with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action from ONE Fight Night 14 via the free event replay.