Richard Kiely confident in pursuit of Alex Lohore’s gold at BAMMA 32

Former Kickboxing champion Richard Kiely makes just his third walk to the cage next Friday in his professional career as he fights for the BAMMA Welterweight title against Englishman Alex ‘DaKid’ Lohore in his home town of Dublin.

The Straight Blast Gym prospect is currently 2-0 with two impressive knockouts over Keith McCabe and Polish grappler Daneil Olejniczak. Obviously there is a huge amount of animosity between both Kiely and Lohore, but despite the pairs rivalry, Kiely still remains aware of ‘Lohore’s stature and the dangers he poses.

“He’s good, but not as good as me. People just haven’t seen enough of me yet to recognise that. I mean anyone who is a world champion has a high skill level, he has a knack of snatching a win from fighters that are better than him so that’s his best attribute. He’ll be exposed by me on Friday though.”

With a BAMMA title opportunity presenting itself already in his still young MMA career, Dublin’s Kiely is certainly confident in the rising of his stock and future in the sport.

“I expect to have many people looking for me to be the face of their organisation, but BAMMA have been very good to me so we’ll have to see what happens after I’m crowned the welterweight champion, but make no mistake, I will definitely be in demand.”

Making the transition from striking arts like Kickboxing or Muay Thai can be very difficult and unfamiliar, but training with high level coaches and sparring partners at SBGi has according to Kiely, made his decision easy to to ply his trade at SBG Concorde.

“Look SBG is one of the best gyms in the world. I have worked closely with coaches John Kavanagh and Dave Roche along with world class sparring partners. All of that has vindicated my decision. I’m as smart as I am pretty and that’s very.”

Kiely is expected by many in the MMA community to hold a striking advantage over Alex Lohore but Kiely also believes that any potential grappling exchanges will play out in his favour.

“Not only do I possess the striking advantage, but I also hold the grappling advantage, the higher fight IQ and I also have the ability to street fight if he wants to make it dirty. In his last fight he deliberately headbutted Nathan Jones, he regularly knees people in the groin to try and get some sort of advantage.”

“If he starts playing that game with me I’ll pull his whiskers out and make him submit verbally to me. Then he can apologise to me. I’m a gracious man so I’ll consider accepting it when he presents me with my belt”

Pleased with he fight preparation, the challenger told Severe MMA that a poor camp would mean no difference to the result on Friday night.

“I could have been on my couch eating pizza and watching television and I could still turn up and volley LaWhore’s chin into the crowd.”

Asked about his dealing with the transition to MMA from kickboxing, Richard again pointed to his coaches at SBG Concorde.

“It’s like anything, it’s a process, I was very lucky as I had two excellent teachers in John and Dave and I’m an excellent student. I focus on the weaknesses while maintaining the strengths. Also when you’re rolling and wrestling with world class athletes it expedites your skill level very quickly.”

Quite impressed with his last victories, Kiely has also spoke of the improvements seen in his already polished striking.

“The skill levels, timing, accuracy and execution of the knockouts were a work of art. If I could hang them on my wall I would. I’m too modest for that though.”