Despite having competed in judo at the Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London Olympics, and freestyle wrestling at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games, Kelly described being signed to compete on the undercard for the spite-hyped Luke Rockhold-Michael Bisping undercard at Allphones Arena as the pinnacle.

"I obviously put a lot of time, effort and money into my judo career and I look upon all of that as a great part of my life," Kelly said. "It was my dream to go to one Olympics and I went to four. Mixed Martial Arts is different. The UFC is the highest level anyone can get to so once I decided that was what I wanted, I set my sights on making it. I've been lucky enough to get a contract and now I have to do well."

The Olympian has been pitted against American Luke Zachrich, a 32-year-old from Ohio who'll make his third appearance in the UFC octagon. Kelly conceded there was numerous reasons why -  in what ought to be a dogfight - he should be ranked the underdog.

"[Zachrich]  was on Ultimate Fighter 7, he has good boxing, good jiujitsu," Kelly said. "He's a little bit taller, he's more experienced than me  - he's fought twice in UFC already -  and I'm looking forward to it."

Kelly, at 35, also admitted he needed to make the most of his opportunity to shine because time, and the wretched toll judo had taken on his body, was against him. "Judo is harder on my body, on my joints [than Mixed Martial Arts]," he told Fairfax Media. "My body is rattling like a Jamaican bobsled, to be honest with you. I'd actually be [joining the UFC] at a good age if I didn't have the miles on my body from my judo career. I have to be very careful during my preparation and training because I've put my body under a lot of stress over the years. Otherwise, I'd say this was the perfect time for me to enter the UFC. However  I'm very positive ...  this is an exciting challenge for me ... and I know I need to make the most of my opportunity."

Zachrich, who'll continue to run his family's two pizza shops and his training centre over the internet while he's in Australia this week in the countdown for his fight, made it clear via UFC reports he'd studied his opponent  "Daniel is a world-class Judoka and he fights with a very tough and aggressive style," he said. "I'm fully prepared for his strengths and weaknesses and will exploit both."

Kelly was among a number of locals which included Robert Whittaker, Anthony Perosh, Jake Matthews, Vic Grujic, Dylan Andrews and Soa Palelei recruited to fight on the undercard of the highly anticipated grudge match between middleweights Rockhold and Bisping.