Danielle Kelly recently beat Jessa Khan to become the first ONE Women’s Atomweight Submission Grappling World champion…
And she thinks that, the majority of time, the casuals think BJJ matches are boring.
That is to say, that is the reason why she chose to compete in ONE Championship – because she thinks ONE is trying to make submission grappling entertaining.
Here’s what she said in a MMA Junkie interview:
When you watch regular, I can’t say other Jiu-Jitsu tournaments, but their rules, and they pull double guard, and sometimes they just don’t care about takedowns.
The casual viewer that watches MMA, they find that really boring, and I feel like with ONE they want you to push the pace.
They don’t want you to sit on your butt anymore and try to stall.
Kelly continues:
To a hobbyist that’s in Jiu-Jitsu, they understand those rules. But to a casual, they’ll think it’s boring.
So it’s a balance with Jiu-Jitsu.
MMA is always exciting to a casual, so Jiu-Jitsu is still trying to get up there.
She also added that she enjoys ONE Championship’s focus on growing women’s sports:
I feel like ONE is trying to push women’s Jiu-Jitsu and fighting, whereas other promotions they’re not pushing women’s Jiu-Jitsu, it’s just the guys, and me being a girl, I like that.
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