UFC middleweight and mixed martial arts veteran Dan Kelly has put on a storied career within the sport of MMA. Now it would appear that Kelly is now considering the end of his career.
Kelly is currently on a three fight losing streak. Speaking to Submission Radio, Kelly revealed that is is interested in retiring after one more fight. Next, Kelly wants Zak Cummings.
“It’s been coming for a while. I’m 41 in October, obviously I’m on the biggest skid of my career by far in terms of results,” Kelly said.
“The last fight really annoyed me because I did everything properly in terms of preparation and it was an injury more than anything else. I mean, the knuckle of his thumb went into my eye – not his finger, it was a fair punch, but it’s taken two months for the eye to get right.
“I’ve just started back training and yeah, I don’t want to finish over the other side of the world. If I get the opportunity I wanna finish at home and then go onto the next phase of my life.”
“Look, I’d do anything to be able to roll back the clock and keep going, but the body is struggling,” Kelly said. “At some point you do have to stop. I’ve got guys who I coach, not only in Judo, in MMA as well. I mean, Big Ben Sosoli’s in the Ultimate Fighter house at the moment. I coach him.
“We’ve got another group of MMA guys who are coming up. So, it’s a good time, it’s just now that we’re starting to get some of the Melbourne guys in, apart from it just being me and Jake (Matthews), it’s be nice to cross over that way as well and have a show where Jimmy will definitely be on this one and probably the next one, Ben will be floating around by that time to I hope. And it’d be good just to have that transition out.”
“I was just sitting there minding my own business and yeah, it popped up and I was very excited by it,” Kelly said. “I mean, obviously I’m coming towards the end of my career and that’s a match-up that makes a lot of sense and is also very suitable for me. He’s got a good record, he’s a little bit older, he’s 34 and he’s a grappler.
“it’s always fun to go against grapplers, I have good records against grapplers and yeah, I jumped on it and said, ‘oh, okay, that would be interesting’. And plus, if I can get it, it would be my last fight. This would be the swan song and the farewell.”
