ONE Championship: Danielle Kelly says Angela Lee grappling match would be ‘easy money’
- The two ONE stars have been trading shots in interviews, and Kelly is willing to settle their differences with a ‘no time limit’ grappling match
- BJJ star tells the MMA champ ‘I’m better than you in jiu jitsu’ and challenges her to ‘start making moves on a match’
Danielle Kelly likes her chances in a potential ONE Championship grappling match with Angela Lee.
Fans have been talking about a clash between the two 26-year-old American stars since Kelly made her debut with the promotion earlier this year. And while the 26-year-old is open to meeting the reigning atomweight MMA queen in the Circle, she does not think it would be particularly competitive.
“I like easy money, so I’ll take the match whenever she’s ready to compete against me,” Kelly, a decorated Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, told the Post. “I don’t think she’s all that. I get beat up by better girls [in the gym]. I’m more scared of them than her.”
Kelly and Lee have had plenty to say about each other of late. The pair’s latest verbal skirmish seemingly began when Kelly suggested Lee was not a “legit grappler” at a recent ONE press conference in Los Angeles.
Kelly says the remark was not intended as an insult, and that she only meant to imply that Lee is not dedicated, full-time, to submission grappling. However, after catching some heat from the MMA champ, she says she is standing by her words.
“At first I was like, ‘This is like high school’,” she said of the recent drama. “You got mad at me for speaking the truth. But then I’m kind of embracing it. It’s fun, and it’s motivating, because people don’t seem to take me seriously. Neither does she.”
Kelly also feels that her burgeoning rivalry with Lee was actually started by the MMA champ, and not the other way around.
“Before all this, I always spoke highly of her,” she said. “She’s a mom, she has a huge audience, she’s a good MMA fighter.
“In a way she kind of insulted me first, saying she’s able to submit me or something – whatever. If you’re that confident you’d start making moves on a match.”
“You’re going to call out someone’s art and say you could easily submit me and I respond back and you don’t like that and say that I’m trying to use your name to get a big match? There’s better girls I need to worry about for jiu jitsu – who can submit you as well. So, yeah, you’re not a legit a grappler. I think I’m better than you in jiu jitsu.”
It is not yet clear if ONE will push ahead on a grappling match between Kelly and Lee, but if it happens, the former is hoping the bout will be facilitated with no time limit, so that a submission is guaranteed one way or the other.
“She said she would submit me. I’m all for that. Let’s do a no time limit.”
