"I started to fall out of love with jiu-jitsu" - Danielle Kelly admits she nearly quit BJJ in high school to focus on wrestling
Danielle Kelly has not had an easy path to get to where she currently sits as the ONE atomweight submission grappling world champion.
The 28-year-old has been through many ups and downs in her life that have only made her a tougher competitor as a result.
After first finding martial arts in difficult circumstances, Kelly recently revealed how her passion and dedication for training jiu-jitsu was tested early on.
She spoke in a podcast interview on The Few Will Hunt Show about how she wasn't able to regularly train whilst she was still in school.
As a result, Kelly found herself gravitating towards wrestling before the course would eventually correct itself:
"I was only able to [go to BJJ] if it was winter break, spring break, but even sometimes the school will be closed. It was hard, I started to fall out of love with jiu-jitsu and I was going to wrestling. That's why I started like, alright, if I can't go to jiu-jitsu every day, I'll just stick with wrestling, because I do it for high school."
Watch the full interview below:
Danielle Kelly clearly made the right call after all
Moments like this exact crossroads show why Danielle Kelly has been so successful in her career.
There have been so many moments where she could have left jiu-jitsu behind and gone down a completely different path.
Even when she became dedicated to her training, Kelly was constantly told no and received pushback with every step forward that she took.
It paid off for Kelly in the end after she continued to persevere through all the adversity that she faced.
The ONE atomweight submission grappling world champion returns to action in the co-main event of ONE Fight Night 24.
Making her first title defense against Mayssa Bastos at Lumpinee Stadium on August 2, Kelly's next outing will air live and free in US Primetime for active Prime Video subscribers in North America.