UFC 112

Paul Kelly's coach proves to be MMA psychic

ESPN staff

April 19, 2010 « Rampage accuses Evans of having glass jaw in Twitter row | ESPN FA Cup Promo »

Paul Kelly knew he would win via guillotine before the fight began © UFC

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Paul Kelly has revealed he knew he would win via guillotine choke before he even set foot inside the Octagon at UFC 112, because his coach had told him how the fight would go.

Kelly is a new member of the Team Kaobon gym in Liverpool, which houses MMA coach Mark Scannell. The change of gyms reaped huge rewards for Kelly in Abu Dhabi, where he pulled off the first stoppage of his UFC career against the highly-rated wrestler Matt Veach.

The Liverpudlian lightweight spent the early stages of the fight with Veach on his back, before exploding out of danger into Veach's guard, where Kelly destroyed his foe with some serious ground-and-pound before locking on the fight-winning guillotine.

And Kelly revealed to ESPN.co.uk it all went exactly to plan: "If you'd spoken to my corner, they would tell you Mark Scannell had been telling me for weeks: 'You're gonna go in, he's gonna shoot on you immediately, he's gonna put you on your back, you're gonna give him your back, you'll end up in his guard, pound him off and then finish him with a guillotine'.

"That's the God's honest truth.

"I'm explosive so my gameplan is sometimes to give my back up, so we just worked on it over and over again for the Veach fight. I cut him with a right elbow once I was in his guard and then went for the finish."

Kelly has said since he entered the UFC that he wants to be the lightweight division's Wanderlei Silva, providing explosive fights win or lose. He refrains from the opportunity to call out his next opponent when asked, but he does admit that he is about to get serious about his career.

"That was the first time in my life that I've gone in not even thinking about the bonus. I want to be an exciting fighter, I want Fight of the Night bonuses and KO of the Night bonuses, not so much for the money but because I want to be like Wanderlei Silva. He was never in a boring fight.

"But of course I had fears of being cut. You can't go 0-2 in the UFC anymore, the odd fighter gets a second chance but not many. Veach is a bad-ass wrestler, yet they've cut him.

"I would like to have finished it on the feet, I would loved to have knocked Veach out, but I was made up with the win."