Black Belt Team 
The raging battle of jiu-jitsu vs. sambo will continue at ONE on Prime Video 4: Abbasov vs. Lee on Friday, November 18, when Danielle Kelly meets Mariia Molchanova. It is a matchup in which the American star enters with extreme confidence.
Kelly is one of the fastest-rising stars in the submission grappling world. The New Jersey resident is talented on the mat and plans to use her experience with sambo to combat her Russian foe when they meet on Prime Video.
“I competed in sambo. I trained it a little bit at one point, but I competed in a sambo tournament. I was a senior, so I guess I was like 17 or 18. I won, and I took first place in both tournaments that year and the year after. It’s different. It was also like in the gi,” recalled Kelly.
“Yeah, I have some experience, so when people are like, ‘Oh, you should do sambo, compete in that sport, too,’ and it’s like, ‘Yeah, I did, but I won, too, so what now?’ But yeah, it’s fine, but jiu-jitsu is better.”
The Philadelphia native has studied her opponent, and one thing she has noticed is that a lot of her exchanges rely on gripping with the gi. With no gi in place for their atomweight meeting, Kelly expects Molchanova to be aggressive and charge in looking for a submission. However, she believes her defense will be on point and allow her to counter anything the Russian may throw at her.
That is when her technical acumen can come into play. Kelly predicts she will have a decided advantage with the mechanics of submission grappling. As the old adage says, position before submission, Kelly plans to utilize that en route to a dominant showcase.
“I think for her art, she’s probably just good at ripping stuff. But she doesn’t really have the mechanics – the finishing mechanics – to really know how to really work a submission. Watching her try to do armbars, she just pulls on the arm. It looks tight, but, you know, if you go against someone that knows what they’re doing, they’re using different details on an armbar and finishing the right way,” said Kelly.
Although Kelly is aware that anything can happen when the bell rings, she is expecting a quick night in Singapore. The American, already a winner of a $50,000 performance bonus in her ONE Championship debut, wants to keep her momentum going with another star-making victory.
“I’m definitely going to try to engage with her most on my part, but I feel like she might try to avoid engaging with me. So, I know that the rule set – for a certain amount of time, if you’re not engaging, you get a stalling point, so she’ll have no choice but to engage with me,” said Kelly.
“I’m going to say under two minutes. I’m just giving her an extra minute to be nice. Hopefully, she engages with me so it doesn’t drag out.”
ONE on Prime Video 4: Abbasov vs. Lee airs live and free to all Amazon Prime subscribers in the United States and Canada. The action begins with the lead card at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Friday, November 18.
Next-Level Women’s Grappling 🤩 Danielle Kelly vs. Mei Yamaguchi
Before American grappling sensation Danielle Kelly returns to face Russian star Mariia Molchanova on November 18, relive her atomweight submission grappling …
Mixed martial arts, Mma, One fc, One championship
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