Paul Kelly, The British Dark Horse

In my desperate scrounging for tidbits--basically anything of substance--about British fighter Paul Kelly (6-0), I found a Google-cached page that originally appeared on the Hawaii Martial Arts News & Rumors site, but the original page appears to be long gone. The Kelly tidbit helped fill the void left by the dearth of online video fight footage. (There is none; trust me.) This particular quote is attributed to The Fight Network, though I was unable to browse for the original story on that site because of the site's extremely poor JavaScript implementation. (Get same error using IE and Firefox.)

[MMA Crossfire note: Paul Kelly seems to be a dark horse on the UFC 80 card. His fight is the first British vs. British bout in UFC history, as he faces two-fight UFC veteran, Paul Taylor (8-2-1, 1-1 UFC).]

Without further ado...

THE BRITISH BARK
News and Notes from the United Kingdom
By Stash Capar of The Fight Network

Mixed martial arts fans will witness the UFC's first-ever Brit-versus-Brit bout when undefeated Paul Kelly takes on Paul Taylor at UFC 80 "Rapid Fire" on Saturday, Jan. 19 at the Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle, England. A member of the Wolfslair Academy – home to Michael Bisping, light heavyweight winner from season three of "The Ultimate Fighter" – Kelly has signed a four-fight deal with the promotion.

"Paul is definitely one to watch out for," Bisping said. "He was to make his Cage Rage debut earlier this year, but things didn't quite work out. Either way, we're glad he's UFC bound."

Kelly (6-0) began his professional career in 2005, with a match against Nigel Whitear at FX3 "Battle of Britain." The bout lasted all of 54 seconds. In the two years since, the welterweight has finished off five more opponents. Five of his six wins have come in the opening round.

Kelly was originally scheduled to make his television debut against Cage Rage welterweight champion Paul Daley at Cage Rage 21 in April. The fight was called off, and though no official reason was provided, some speculate the UFC approached Kelly with a superior offer. He defeated Jordan James at Cage Gladiators 4 in August, as he scored a second-round TKO.

Taylor (8-2-1, 1-1 UFC), meanwhile, has already fought in two of the three UFC shows in the UK and is coming off a submission loss to Marcus Davis at UFC 75 in September.

I also found a description of his last fight before signing with the UFC. The following was pulled from MMAScoops.com - Cage Gladiators 4 Results & Photo Gallery:

Up and coming welterweight charger Paul Kelly worked his patented ground and pound attack on the tough, but wild, Jordan James forcing a ground and pound stoppage at the 2:40 mark of the second. There were protestations to the stoppage coming from James, who argued that it was premature, but from where I was sitting, being held in a crucifix, unable to defend yourself against strikes from above and having a nasty cut opened above your left eye is hardly grounds for complaint. Clearly upset, he stormed off to the dressing room to ponder how he could have possibly escaped such a disastrous position.

In Related News: My UFC 80 Predictions will be posted on Jan 6th.