Danielle Kelly shows love for her support system

Nothing would give Danielle Kelly more pleasure than to see more athletes succeed as she has.

The jiu-jitsu star is fresh off her second victory under the promotion at ONE on Prime Video 4 and is looking forward to what’s next to come.

Reflecting on her journey to the top with her awesome team of coaches and mentors, Kelly realizes that she would be lost without their continuous support.

The Silver Fox BJJ representative followed up with ONE Championship and said:

“If you surround yourself with a good environment that's really going to help you go far. Whereas if you surround yourself with bad people, they're just going to put you down, you know, and that's just the reality of it. So I think with my situation now, I think where I'm at now speaks for itself because I'm around the right people.”

Danielle Kelly defeated multi-time sambo world champion Mariia Molchanova in quick fashion.

She managed to control Molchanova's back from the guard position and transition for a rear-naked choke. She almost didn’t succeed as Molchanova did a good job trying to scramble free but the body slam at the end sunk the arm in for the choke.

In the aftermath, Kelly was awarded her second straight performance bonus for her spectacular finish, enough in the bank to jump-start her Chick-fil-A business just as she wanted.

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Danielle Kelly says she drilled incessantly in preparation for Mariia Molchanova

Danielle Kelly was thrilled to achieve her first submission victory for the promotion. Her opponent, Mariia Molchanova, proved to be a strong and athletic wrestler to Kelly’s surprise.

Molchanova has won various accolades throughout her career, dominating the European scene with multiple sambo world titles since 2010. Despite her loss, ONE was her first experience on the major stage, so just like the athlete she is, the 34-year-old Russian will regroup and come back stronger.

Danielle Kelly was jubilant about her win, crediting friend and mentor Enrique Galarza for drilling her “100x during the week to prepare.” In the post-event interviews, the jiu-jitsu star recalled what transpired behind-the-scenes in more detail:

“I knew she was gonna be reall strong but me and my coaches back at home, Enrique like even just during the week, here we were drilling a lot of like back sequences. I really wanted a twister but, you know, she was holding my arm really really strong. But yeah, I’ve been working on just squeezing. I wasn’t really expecting her to like, slam me so that was pretty eye-opening.”