After being eliminated in the preliminary round of The Ultimate Fighter 19, Kelly Anundson of American Top Team was signed by Bellator and was booked to make his debut in the promotion against highly touted prospect Volkan Oezdemir at Bellator 115.
Oezdemir walked into the fight as one of the top prospects in the Bellator light heavyweight division and was undefeated.
Eight of his ten wins had come by knockout and the feeling was that a win over Anundson would place him into the next tournament.
However, Anundson would dominate the fight with his wrestling and submitted Oezdemir in the second round with a neck crank. The victory would end up scoring Anundson a place in the Summer Series light heavyweight tournament and he will meet Rodney Wallace next week in the opening round of the tournament at Bellator 121.
Anundson (7-2) was a guest on this week’s edition of “The MMA Report Live” and called the victory over Oezdemir one of the best performances of his career. Prior to the fight, Anundson knew that Bellator was looking to get Oezdemir into the tournament so he took the fight since it was essentially a tournament qualifier.
“That was kind of the stipulation on the fight,” Anundson said. “They wanted to put him in the tournament and I think they tried to bring me in to lose to him. They told me that the winning of the fight gets in the tournament, so I went out there and tried my hardest and came out with the win.”
When the tournament field was officially announced earlier this month following Bellator 118, Anundson was scheduled to face Carlos Eduardo. However, Eduardo was moved to another fight in the tournament due to injury and Anundson will now face Rodney Wallace.
Eduardo and Wallace are different fighters because of the style they bring into the cage but for Anundson, it doesn’t matter who his opponent is since he is going to go out there and do what he needs to accomplish to get the victory.
“I think Carlos Eduardo is more of a jiu-jitsu guy and Rodney Wallace is more of a wrestler, stand up guy,” Anundson said. “Either way, I am going to go out there and bang with him and go wherever the fight goes. I train at the best camp in the world so I am ready for the ground game, wrestling, and the striking. It doesn’t really matter who the opponent is at this point because I am going out there to do what I do.”
He is very familiar with Wallace (21-8-1), who is a former UFC fighter and he also won his Bellator debut in April as he defeated Eduardo by decision. After defeating Eduardo, Wallace took a fight outside of Bellator and earned another decision victory. Anundson explained that his fight with Wallace is a big deal in the southeast and this fight has been talked about for awhile.
“This is actually a really big fight in the Southeast,” he said. “I went to college in the Carolina’s and he is from North Carolina. People have been trying to put this fight together for a long time and they were not trying to pay us either, so it never really worked out but now on a big stage were we are actually getting paid fair money to do it, it makes more sense at this point. I researched Rodney Wallace years ago.”
“You know it’s weird sometimes you have feelings in your gut that people you are going to fight. Same thing with the last fight. I trained with him a few years ago since my wife in from Switzerland too and I did a seminar at this school. I thought in my head, I am probably going to fight this guy one day. I did and the same thing is happening with Rodney Wallace. I am prepared.”
Anundson has been in training camp at American Top Team in South Florida since his victory over Oezdemir and feels that he is in better shape right now then he was for his first fight in Bellator.
“I have been in camp directly after my last fight. I never took any time off. I am in great shape right now. I am actually in better shape than I was in my first fight. I feel like as long as I come prepared physically, as far as condition wise, I can push the pace on him and he is not know for his conditioning. I think that’s going to be the big advantage that I have.”