Danielle Kelly reveals other parts of her ground game in preparation for transition to MMA

Danielle Kelly was signed to ONE Championship in early 2022 as the promotion ramped up its expansion of submission grappling. Following her impressive debut against Mei Yamaguchi at ONE X in March, Kelly pocketed a $50,000 bonus and introduced herself to the combat sports world.

Since then, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the timeline for Kelly's return to the circle. While the American has repeatedly said that her focus is on submission grappling, a brewing rivalry with ONE atomweight women’s world champion Angela Lee has fueled rumors that the submission grappling star could transition to mixed martial arts sooner rather than later.

Speaking to ONE Championship, Kelly revealed that she has been training in wrestling throughout her martial arts journey, presumably to aid in her eventual transition to MMA. When and where that happens is anyone’s guess. Danielle Kelly has no intentions of rushing things, but she has been hard at work rounding on her skills.

“I started wrestling after I joined jiu-jitsu, about six months later. I wrestled until my senior year or college freshman year. I was doing folkstyle in school, and I was doing freestyle outside of it because I was planning on going to college for freestyle.”

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Danielle Kelly is excited to have her first MMA fight in ONE Championship

At just 26 years old, Danielle Kelly has already established herself as one of the biggest names in submission grappling. Her addition to the ONE Championship roster helped solidify her status as one of the best in the world, but Kelly is already looking ahead to a future in MMA.

In an interview with Jiu-Jitsu Times, Danielle Kelly discussed her excitement about jumping into the world of MMA and suspects that other submission grappling stars under the ONE banner will look to make that same leap in their own time.

“[MMA] is something new, and it’s something I’ve found that really excites me. I want to get better at it, so it motivates me to do better. And I’ve always told myself, ever since I was a kid, that I wanted to fight. So if I’m going to have my first MMA fight – which I am – it’s going to be under ONE, which is really what I’m excited for. Plus, a lot of these well-known grapplers are signing [with ONE], and might be fighting [MMA] too, so that’s really exciting, and motivates me a lot.”