A former collegiate wrestling standout and "Ultimate Fighter 7" contestant (he was subsequently released after it was discovered he had a contagious skin infection), Paul Bradley is a welterweight prospect currently splitting his training time between the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy and Team Lionheart.

A former two time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler at the University of Iowa, Bradley has excellent amateur wrestling credentials and entered the sport with a highly decorated wrestling base. His background is very apparent when watching him fight as he displays a strong tendency to take the fight to the floor with powerful double legs, strong takedowns and good work from inside the clinch. With a good sprawl to compliment those takedown abilities, Bradley is usually in an excellent position to dictate where the fight takes place. Thus far in his career, that's usually meant taking the fight to the ground where he's been able to control his opponents from the top with his strong wrestling base. An intelligent fighter, Bradley does understand the importance of takedowns in the eyes of the judges and does take a strategic approach in knowing when to go for those takedowns to score points and win rounds. A perfect example of this was in his bout with Nova Uniao trained BJJ black belt Leonardo Pecanha, whom Bradley continuously took down towards the end of the rounds to score "points" while also giving his opponent very little time to put his BJJ skills to use. As effective as he is at getting the fight to the ground, Bradley will need to get better at improving positions, going for subs and looking to inflict damage once he gets there as his fights are often stood up because of a lack of activity, and he has been accused of "lay and pray" tactics in the past. In addition, his only MMA loss came against UFC veteran Mike Pierce - a fighter who also possesses a very strong wrestling game and a fighter whom Bradley wasn't able to continuously overpower and simply take down. If anything, that bout showed that Bradley will need to progress beyond simply his wrestling and takedowns and continue diversifying his whole game, including the different facets of his MMA grappling game (guard, BJJ, submissions etc). It should be noted that many other fighters with strong amateur wrestling backgrounds weren't nearly as exciting fighters upon their initial arrivals into the sport (Gray Maynard, Josh Koscheck, Jake Shields etc.), as they needed to familiarize themselves with and develop other areas of their game for the first time, so their definitely will be a period of adaptability.

On his feet, Bradley is definitely a developing striker who insists that he's working hard at getting his striking up to par with his wrestling and rounding out his skills. He does move well on his feet and he is big and strong with the natural ability to throw powerful punches when he feels like it, and he did drop Dante Rivera just seconds into the opening round of their bout (see media below). His wrestling abilities actually help him on his feet because the threat of getting taken down causes his opponents to feel tentative about getting in close with him and this helps Bradley "stick and move" without his opponents rushing in too aggressively at him. When opponents do come at him aggressively or start countering effectively, Bradley usually reverts back to his wrestling and puts them on their back for the remainder of the round. An athletic, powerful fighter with naturally heavy hands and age on his side, there's no reason to think that Bradley can't become a solid standup fighter, but he will need to continue working on his all-around striking ability. At this point Bradley has shown good potential but he will need to put some considerable work in towards rounding out his skills in order to compete with the upper echelon welterweights in the world, who are simply too well rounded for Bradley to not be competent in every facet of the game.