Paul Kelly: Demons exorcised, now on to 155

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By Elliot Worsell

Last Saturday night at The O2 in London, welterweight Paul Kelly wanted a war. He wanted to get dirty. He wanted to be knocked around so much he forgot the troubles occupying his mind. Paul Kelly wanted to be punished.

“I’m going for a bloody good war that lasts for three rounds,” Kelly said before entering the Octagon to face Hawaiian Troy Mandaloniz. “I want the two of us covered in blood at the end, with blood and guts everywhere. I want a proper good and exciting scrap. That’s all I’m fussed about right now.”

Following three rounds of enthralling and, yes, bloody action, Kelly had exorcised demons, overcome predicaments and bagged a unanimous decision victory. He also took home a couple of welts and bumps as souvenirs.

Jubilant and revived on Saturday night, Kelly moved to 9-1 and, together with a game Mandaloniz, put on one of the most entertaining bouts of a thrilling UFC 95 card.

Then the pain hit Kelly like an Antoni Hardonk leg-kick.

“I’m feeling it now,” says Kelly, two days after going to war. “On Sunday I realised how messed up I was and how sore I was. I feel like someone’s beaten me around the head with a metal bat for the last 48 hours. My shin, my hands, my head and my jaw are all killing me.

“I could feel some of Troy’s shots in the fight and he hits like a train. I’m feeling the pain a lot worse now, though.”

Perhaps Kelly asked for it. Scrap that – he did ask for it. He baited Mandaloniz into an old-fashioned scrap and he duly received his end of it. Refusing to touch gloves at the start of the three-round bout, Kelly and Mandaloniz would proceed to hang it all out for 15 minutes of give-and-take, crowd-pleasing action.

“It was the kind of fight I love,” admits Kelly. “It was a just a proper good scrap. All my fans were hoping I’d knock him out in the first round, but I honestly didn’t want to. I wanted to get messy in a good three-round war. I wanted to make a statement. I needed to prove a point in this fight and I hope I did.”

Despite winning comfortably on the scorecards – 30-27 twice, plus 29-28 – Kelly knew he’d been in a fight at the bout’s conclusion. Swollen rather than bruised, Kelly had to withstand some gutsy attacks from Mandaloniz throughout. Though showing no respect at the outset, Kelly was full of admiration for his opponent following 15 minutes shared together in sport’s premier proving ground.

“He was game and he bangs hard,” says Kelly. “He has a head like a slab of concrete. I knew he’d come at me and try and put me away.

“I’ve just watched the fight back for the first time now and, I’ll tell you what, that first round was going both ways until I landed a few body shots. He was coming forward looking to take my head off. It was exactly the kind of fight I needed.”

It may sound crazy to most sane individuals, but Kelly is serious when he says he ‘needed’ a blood-and-guts war like the one he received on Saturday. Though some might coin him a sadist, Kelly simply craved an exciting, testing battle to clear his head. It’s a fighter’s version of a walk in the park on a Sunday morning, a hot bath or a quiet hour with a book.

After all, the proud Liverpudlian’s previous Octagon outing wasn’t quite so, shall we say, rewarding in his pursuit of pain.

“That Marcus (Davis) defeat isn’t even on my mind anymore,” recalls Kelly. “It was all I was thinking of before the fight with Troy and now it’s gone. I think I redeemed myself with that performance on Saturday.”

After getting submitted by Davis at UFC 89, Kelly cut a crestfallen figure. He wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t bloody. He wasn’t in pain.

To most people, that would be a good thing. To Kelly, it was nothing short of disastrous.

“If I’d have lost to Marcus and given it my all, maybe my confidence would have been dented,” ponders Kelly. “I know I was a load of rubbish in that fight, though. That’s why the defeat annoyed me so much. I didn’t do myself justice in there. Whatever, I’m over it now and I’ve moved on. It was a big lesson learned.

“The UFC don’t want boring fighters around. I realise that and I realised that my future could have been in doubt if I screwed up against Troy and looked bad. I needed a big win against him.”

With everything on the line and his back pressed against the wall, Kelly did everything he had to do – he won and he won big. While most fighters choose to win via knockout in their ideal world, Kelly needed to cleanse his system in a punishing three-rounder. In Mandaloniz, it appeared Kelly had found the perfect playmate.

“I was saying to him, ‘I hope you like this pace, Troy, ‘cos this is how it’s going to be for 15 minutes’,” recounts Kelly. “He was coming back with ‘hit me then, I ain’t going nowhere’. It was mad. I’ve never known anything like it.”

Kelly may not have been involved in a brawl quite so intense before, but he’d certainly pictured it happening.

“I did a lot of visualisation for that fight,” reveals ‘Tellys’. “I’d never done anything like it before and I’d fought that fight 50 times before I actually stepped into the Octagon. I actually did the victory laps in my visualisations, too. After the fight I was doing the victory laps and said to myself, ‘what the hell are you doing? You’re knackered! Sit down!’”

Presumably still knackered today, given the pace and action of Saturday’s affair, Kelly will soon sit down and map out a plan for his UFC future. No longer looking to mix it with welterweights, Kelly will now try his hand in the lightweight division. Rumours circulated before Saturday that the Scouse grappler would drop down - now he’s confirmed it.

“I’m definitely dropping to 155-pounds now,” admits Paul. “It makes sense. I was eating a big breakfast on the morning of the weigh-in last Friday. While everyone else is dying to make weight, I’m sitting there with a big bowl of muesli and a glass of orange juice. I’ll just have to cut 10-pounds and that’s it. It’s no big deal.

“All the lightweights in my gym are bigger than me in between fights. They walk around at about 83 kilos and I walk around at about 81 or 82 kilos. I won’t lose any strength moving down. Nobody can keep me on my back in the gym and that will stay like that at lightweight.”

Before Kelly can commence the cutting process ahead of his next ‘war’, the Wolfslair standout will take a little time off, heal up and enjoy the less violent thrills of life.

“I’m going to go on holiday with my little daughter,” says Kelly. “I’ve missed her like crazy these last few months. I move out six to eight weeks before (a fight) and if I’m not training for my fight I’m training for Rampage’s or Mike’s (Bisping) or (Cheick) Kongo’s and I’m usually always away.

“To be honest, it’s going to take me a couple of weeks to start feeling normal again. I’m battered from head to toe.”

Paul Kelly wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

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