Fight Path: Bowling standout and Bellator 95's Brian Kelleher giving MMA a roll

When Brian Kelleher was young, his mother worked at a bowling alley.

Among other things, like helping in part to provide a comfortable life for his family on Long Island, N.Y., the job meant nearly unlimited free access to the lanes for a young Kelleher. He took advantage.

This part of the story goes just like you think it would: Kelleher ended up with his own bowling balls, one of those rolling bags to transport them and even a few 300 games on his resume. It's not fair to say this was his inspiration for becoming a professional athlete, but it was one of the reasons he knew he could be good at whatever he tried – which included a serious youth, high school and adult career in soccer.

"I'm not even joking," Kelleher told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "I really think if I had tried, I could've been a professional (bowler). I just have that kind of commitment to what I'm doing."

The focus instead shifted to mixed martial arts, where Kelleher has overcome some early losses and doubts to build momentum heading into his biggest fight. At 9-3 and on a five-fight win streak, Kelleher is scheduled to face Jimmie Rivera (11-1) at April 4's Bellator 95 show in Atlantic City, N.J.

The fight comes a little more than a year after Kelleher decided he would give himself one more fight to try to turn his career around after suffering two straight losses that eroded his confidence. He responded with a win streak that has elevated him (he has fought at both 135 and 145 pounds).

The 26-year-old Long Island resident says both his past experience in other sports as well as the things he has done outside of MMA – including jobs at a hospital and a care facility for the mentally handicapped – have prepared him for this rise.

Not to mention his pack-up-and-move moment to live and train with Team Bombsquad in Ithaca, N.Y., which truly started his path to being a professional fighter.

"I was always quick to leave something I didn't love," Kelleher said. "This has been a big commitment for me, and this fight is really important."

Bowling balls and soccer cleats

Kelleher is a born-and-raised New Yorker, living for almost his whole life on Long Island.

Early in that life, he tried his first athletic pursuit, enlisting in soccer by about age 5. It was the first pastime that showed him he might have a future in doing something athletic.

"I just connected with sports, and I felt like I had a different level of athleticism," he said. "I was passionate about it, and I wanted to win more than anything."

In fact, that's the same attitude Kelleher brings to his adult indoor soccer league these days. He plays with his two brothers, and in a league filled with serious players, the physical nature of the game can rise quickly.

But then Kelleher had his sporting interest that was not so physical. Bowling was something he tried because he could do it for free, but it also turned into a passion and is still something he and some training partners will do to blow off steam from their intense training sessions.

He still has the two different bowling balls – "Well, one for spares and one for strikes, the one that's more plastic and the one that's polyurethane" – but he doesn't get to spend as much time on that pursuit. Even though Kelleher would often leave a situation if he didn't immediately find it useful, MMA has stuck.

Finding a calling

About seven years ago, a new gym opened in a nearby town, and Kelleher decided to check it out.

He found himself in a community of passionate but amateur MMA enthusiasts. Within a month, the owner asked him if he wanted to try an amateur fight, and he said sure.

"I have to thank him for getting me into it like that, even if it was rushed," Kelleher said. "It was too quick, but I won the first fight, and that's when I knew I wanted to keep doing it."

Over the years, he compiled seven amateur fights. That came while he moved to several jobs to support himself, including in food delivery at a hospital and assisting the mentally handicapped in a group home. Both provided needed perspective while he pursued his fighting career, he said.

That career jumped in seriousness after he went 5-2 as an amateur and two fighters who sometimes helped train at his gym, Anthony Leone and Kenny Foster, moved to train with Team Bombsquad. They invited Kelleher to come with them, but he couldn't. When that pair returned to his gym later, both had boosted their careers, which they attributed to the commitment to Bombsquad.

So, Kelleher made a choice. He packed up his things and moved to Ithaca, living and training with Team Bombsquad. By March 2011, he had his first professional fight, which was a loss.

But he still was confident. He stretched his record to 4-1 before consecutive losses – including in his Bellator debut against Claudio Ledesma in October 2011 – caused him to consider leaving fighting.

His family and friends convinced him to schedule one more fight, and when he beat Josh Parker at a New England Fights show in February 2012, it started his five-fight winning streak. It's something he has carried into the training for his Bellator appearance next month, which he considers crucial to his career.

"I remember when I (beat Parker), I even swore, I said, ‘This is my (expletive) year,'" Kelleher said. "That's how I really felt, like it was my time. Now I'm just trying to continue that."

http://www.mmajunkie.com/news/2013/03/fight-path-bowling-standout-and-bellator-95s-brian-kelleher-giving-mma-a-roll