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(Exclusive) Danielle Kelly Talks Mayssa Bastos Rematch at ONE Fight Night 26

Kelly will try to reclaim her ONE Championship belt on December 6.

Drew Beaupre

(ONE Championship

ONE Championship will close out its 2024 schedule with ONE Fight Night 26 on December 6, and ahead of the event Danielle Kelly spoke with MMA KO’s Drew Beaupré before she attempts to reclaim her ONE Atomweight Submission Grappling title in a rematch with Mayssa Bastos.

"I Was Worried That I Would Have To Wait"

Kelly captured ONE’s inaugural Atomweight Submission Grappling World Championship last year before losing to Bastos in August, and ahead of the rematch the former champion says she’s feeling a bit less pressure than during the lead up to their first meeting.

“I feel less stressed this time,” Kelly explained. “I think as the match comes closer I get like a little nervous, but I think it’s a good thing, ‘cause I wanna try and get my belt back."

Mayssa Bastos vs. Danielle Kelly 2 Set for ONE Fight Night 26

“I think part of it is definitely not being the champ anymore. But there’s motivation, ‘cause like I still like want the belt, but I think like there’s less pressure on me. And I know I put in like a ton of time and work in my last match with her, and just disappointed with the result at the end and what happened. I don’t know, I’m just not trying to stress little things like that anymore. I’m kind of just going forward to put on a fun match and just go after her…I was worried that I would have to wait, ‘cause before the Mayssa match I didn’t compete for almost a year, and I didn’t wanna take that risk of waiting another year while everyone else is able to compete.”

Preparing For The Rematch With Bastos

The first match between the two women at ONE Fight Night 24 was a closely-contested affair that ultimately went to the scorecards, and even though she came up short in that meeting Kelly feels like she has a good understanding of what Bastos will bring to the table in their rematch.

“When people keep going against each other, they have an idea of what they’re gonna do. Like I have an idea – she does it in every match, you know she just did ADCC. She didn’t really change much - maybe she’s going to for this match, ‘cause she’s able to have more time to prepare. But she did prepare for our first match, ‘cause it was like a couple months out. This was kind of like – timing was very small in this one, the rematch, I don’t see her changing much unless like - maybe she surprises me. Which, I’m trained for that too. But, I think with me, I think I have to just keep going after her. She’s beatable, it’s been proven a lot. And I think I just have to try to get in her face and be more aggressive. Unfortunately, I can’t control what the ref or judges see, ‘cause I felt like I initiated the whole match. Other people saw that. It sucks, it’s a sucky feeling, but I go in with this mindset, I don’t care if she has the belt or not. I just have to try to break her or go after what I can against her.”

“I feel like I was initiating stuff in the [first] match. There’s a point in the match where – in every ruleset of ONE’s matches, there’s like a guard rule. And at one point where she just sits guard, no attack or anything initiating, didn’t get a call for that. Which I guess I have to prepare for, but that wasn’t really talked about in previous stuff. But you know, it was just me trying to get a reaction, ‘cause all she does is sit on her butt. For this one I would say like I’m surprised that she tried to do a lot of wrestle-ups, which I’m gonna stay prepared for. That’s what I’ve been training for, so I hope she tries to ‘cause I wanna try to get as many catches as I can...Mayssa wasn’t doing anything. So yeah, I think like even just trying to pass guard from wrestling. I’m trying to get a lot of head reactions from her from – either to react to get her to take me down, or to go for a guard pull reaction. Just to get like a reaction out of her, but she wasn’t really giving me that. So I felt like I was up for a bit trying to be the aggressive one.”

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Representing The United States & Women's Grappling

The 28-year-old has become a major name for ONE Championship since making her promotional debut against Mei Yamaguchi back in 2022, and Kelly values the opportunity to represent the United States and also showcase women’s grappling on a big year-ending event at ONE Fight Night 26.

“I definitely feel like I’m one of the few that's really pushed – especially for women’s grappling, I definitely bring the views for the matches, there’s no doubt about it. If I ever have a match, like normally most people don’t really know the other opponent, or like they don’t know that they
have a match, but when I’m competing against they’re able to more tune in ‘cause they either follow me or they know of me, so they’re more wanting to watch the match."

(Exclusive) Danielle Kelly Talks Mayssa Bastos Rematch at ONE Fight Night 26
Kelly has been with ONE Championship since 2022. / (ONE Championship

“It’s always a good feeling when I’m on a card, especially flying either all the way to Thailand or Singapore, and sometimes I’m like the only American…So it’s really cool, I think there’s gonna be three or four Americans on this card coming up that are representing the United
States, so it’s a pretty cool thing. ‘Cause most times you’re just the only American, like an outsider. But yeah, I’m always – whenever I compete, I’m always proud to represent my country, put it on the show. So that’s what the fans want everywhere.”

Bastos Trilogy & Possible Move To MMA

Fans have already seen grappling phenom Kade Ruotolo make the jump over to MMA in ONE Championship this year, and although Kelly is open to competing in MMA in the future she’s currently focused on reclaiming her belt and taking some time off before a potential trilogy matchup with Bastos somewhere down the line.

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“[MMA is] definitely on my mind, but my name is just growing and I think there’s definitely always a ‘maybe’, like jiu-jitsu is growing, MMA is growing. Right now, would I fight right now? No, I want to be the best for now and then I’ll see what my team says far future.”

(Exclusive) Danielle Kelly Talks Mayssa Bastos Rematch at ONE Fight Night 26
A future move to MMA isn't out of the question for Kelly. / (ONE Championship)

“If I win my belt back, next year I definitely want to travel just a bit more for teaching and just having a little mini vacation, ‘cause I kinda – right when I got asked for this rematch, I was kind of on that urge of doing that, but then I was like ‘You know what, she’s beatable. So I’m gonna just take the rematch.’…I literally just competed in August, and now December. But I would like to be active, but also I feel like for a trilogy match, if it happens I don’t think it should be so soon. It’s just like that Alexa Grasso and Valentina [Shevchenko] match, people want to see those two fight other people. So I would like to see me and her eventually get the trilogy if it happens, depending how December goes. I wanna go against some other girls, I wanna like – Kade [Ruotolo] and them went against like wrestlers, MMA fighters, so I would like to do that. Mayssa was able to compete against someone else before me, so I would just like to do that and yes, hopefully in the U.S.”

The rematch between Kelly and Bastos will feature as the first of two title bouts scheduled for ONE Fight Night 26 at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, and in the night’s main event two-division ONE titleholder Christian Lee returns to face unbeaten lightweight challenger Alibeg Rasulov.

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Drew Beaupre
DREW BEAUPRE

Drew is an MMA writer that regularly watches regional events in addition to major promotions such as the UFC, PFL, Bellator, and ONE Championship. He joined MMA Knockout when it was founded in 2023.

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