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Danielle Kelly became the first ONE Championship atomweight submission grappling champion in 2023 <\/p>\n
ONE Championship has released its former atomweight submission grappling champion Danielle Kelly, along with several other notable fighters.<\/p>\n
That list also includes four MMA fighters \u2013 Meng Bo, Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg, Xie Wei, and Antonio Mammarella.<\/p>\n
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Chinese MMA veteran Meng Bo departs ONE Championship while being ranked No 4 in the atomweight division<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old American Kelly was one of the promotion\u2019s most high-profile signings when it began building a roster of elite no-gi grapplers in 2022. She became the inaugural champion in her division with a decision win over Jessa Khan in September 2023.<\/p>\n
But Kelly dropped the belt to Mayssa Bastos in August 2024, and failed to win it back in a rematch last December \u2013 both by decision. Her exit follows that of former men\u2019s flyweight champ Mikey Musumeci, who has since won a title under the UFC\u2019s new BJJ-only venture.<\/p>\n
Kelly\u2019s release came as part of a wider shake-up, with a group of fighters quietly removed from the ONE athlete roster on Wednesday, according to updated profile pages on the promotion\u2019s official website.<\/p>\n
Most surprising is No 4-ranked women\u2019s atomweight MMA contender Meng, who had been tipped for a future title shot.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Chinese striker, who went 6-4 across ONE\u2019s 115- and 125-pound MMA divisions, lost her most recent outing in February to the reigning strawweight champion Xiong Jingnan, who was making a drop down to atomweight but failed hydration.<\/p>\n
Meng still holds a very notable win in women\u2019s MMA \u2013 a 2013 decision over Zhang Weili, who has since gone on to become a two-time UFC strawweight champ.<\/p>\n
Highly touted upon signing with ONE in 2019, she struggled to pass hydration and make weight on multiple occasions. She reeled off three straight wins at the start of her tenure, but suffered a shock loss to India\u2019s Ritu Phogat in the quarter finals of the 2021 women\u2019s atomweight MMA grand prix.<\/p>\n
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Mongolian MMA veteran Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg lost a third-round submission to Jhanlo Sangiao earlier this month at ONE Fight Night 33<\/p>\n
Losses to Tiffany Teo and Ayaka Miura, both title challengers, had put paid to her hopes at strawweight. But she had recently rebounded with a statement win over Chihiro Sawada in January 2025, announcing herself as a threat in the atomweight division and seemingly putting her issues with making weight behind her.<\/p>\n
Also released is Zoltsetseg, a long-time bantamweight MMA fixture from Mongolia who was submitted in the third round by Jhanlo Mark Sangiao at ONE Fight Night 33 earlier this month. The 28-year-old went 5-4 after debuting in 2019.<\/p>\n
Chinese flyweight veteran Xie is also out after suffering three straight defeats. The 28-year-old fell to Reece McLaren by rear-naked choke last year, before back-to-back losses to current champion Yuya Wakamatsu and Tatsumitsu Wada in July.<\/p>\n
Italy\u2019s Mammarella, 25, has also departed after a brief 0-2 run. He was submitted by Adrian Lee in the second round of his debut at ONE 167 in Bangkok \u2013 the younger brother of Angela, Christian and Victoria Lee \u2013 and lost his second fight by decision to Oliver Axelsson in March.<\/p>\n
ONE has not officially commented on the releases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former atomweight submission grappling champ exits alongside China\u2019s Meng, Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg, Xie Wei and Antonio Mammarella PUBLISHED :…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-14966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}