Fight Path: How Jeff Monson, Anthony Johnson and Ricardo Liborio brought Kelly Anundson to Bellator

Kelly Anundson had finished his collegiate wrestling career and already served as his own mixed-martial-arts manager when he found himself across from one of his idols at a grappling tournament.

Jeff Monson was a well-known fighter, but Anundson knew him just as well from his collegiate wrestling career at Oregon State because Anundson grew up in nearby Washington state. After their match, he started talking with Monson and some of Monson’s teammates at American Top Team in Florida.

Anundson was a raw talent living in South Carolina, where he had finished his college wrestling career. They saw enough that they wanted to help.

“They said, ‘You should come to ATT,’” Anundson told MMAjunkie. “The tournament kept going, and later I met (American Top Team founder) Ricardo Liborio. He invited me out to help Thiago Silva train for Rashad Evans.”

That was four years ago, and with the formal training, Anundson transitioned from skilled wrestler to skilled fighter. He takes another step on April 4 when he faces undefeated Volkan Oezdemir (10-0) in a light heavyweight feature fight on the preliminary card at Bellator 115, which takes place at Nevada’s Reno Events Center.

Now living far from his childhood home of the small town of Elma, Wash., the 29-year-old Anundson is on a three-fight winning streak that has boosted his record to 6-2. That came after nearly 20 years dedicated to wrestling across the country.

He’s driven in part by his hard-working background, coming from a family committed heavily to the trucking industry. He’s also carrying a lifetime of competition experience that helped him to a fast start to his career even though he began his training later than some.

“I was so green (when starting at ATT),” Anundson said. “But I knew how to train, and I had a good wrestling base. I just needed to learn.”

Committed to wrestling

Anundson estimated that his hometown of Elma, Wash., had a population of about 1,500 when he was growing up. It was classic Pacific Northwest, big in the logging industry with plenty of beautiful outdoor scenes.

His mother and stepfather owned a trucking company. His uncle worked for them, and his grandfather had also been a trucker. It was part of the family’s identity.

“It was beards and Hank Williams Jr., and all the things someone might think of,” Anundson said. “They did a lot of hauling of cedar chips, and it was just what our family did.”

Anundson was also encouraged to spend time playing outside, or as he joked, he wasn’t allowed back in the house until dinner time. Within all that scrapping, he found wrestling.

His cousins were wrestlers, and he admired them. He joined a local club, which had a strong tradition even though it came from a small town. His coach, Rick Rakevich, is in the state’s wrestling coaches hall of fame, and he helped guide Anundson to success on a national level.

In the years he wrestled, from about 5 to 25 years old, Anundson was a state champion and a college All-American while competing all over the country. He moved with his mother to Reno, Nev., as a high school sophomore when his parents divorced, and he went on to California’s Lassen Community College.

There, he was a teammate of future UFC fighter Anthony Johnson, and together they began an off-season interest in MMA at a local gym. They weren’t allowed to fight yet, but they started the basics of MMA.

“It was something to do to stay in shape in the summer and get away from wrestling a little bit,” Anundson said. “I knew in college that I wanted to fight. I just had to wait to do it.”

Finding a new career

Anundson transferred from California to South Carolina’s Newberry College, where he was a three-time All-American and a national tournament qualifier. He kept his MMA interest, and when he finished his career there he started making phone calls.

Things in the South Carolina region weren’t always formal at that time, so Anundson kept an eye out for shows that might need fighters and pick up the phone to offer his services.

“Some of them were basically like freak shows,” he said. “They were these crazy little towns where someone had bought a cage and set it up in the armory or the fairgrounds or something like that.”

Anundson had been through a few of those fights when he went to the grappling tournament where he met Monson and the ATT crew. That was his main spark, causing his training to shift to Florida and his eventual move to Coconut Creek to train full-time there.

He made his professional debut not long after, in January 2010, and he won his first three fights. Then, in his estimation, he made a mistake. In April 2011, he accepted a fight on six-days’ notice against Francis Carmont, who would later become a UFC fighter. The first-round loss was stinging, and because Anundson was frustrated, he took another fight just a week later and lost again.

Following those two defeats, he was 3-2 and upset. But then he turned things around to win his next three fights. That got Bellator’s attention, and he’ll make his debut with the promotion next week while hoping to continue his successful transition from wrestling to MMA and tarnish his opponent’s undefeated record.

“I don’t think he’s even fought someone yet who was really going to give him a fight,” Anundson said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

For more on Bellator 115, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.

Award-winning newspaper reporter Kyle Nagel pens “Fight Path” each week. The column focuses on the circumstances that led fighters to a profession in MMA. Know a fighter with an interesting story? Email us at news [at] mmajunkie.com.