Reinier de Ridder, the current middleweight world champion of ONE, is mindful of the mistakes he made in his all-grappling battle with Tye Ruotolo.
In the historic ONE Fight Night 10 event in May, “The Dutch Knight” returned to his roots and engaged the 20-year-old phenom in a submission grappling contest.
Unfortunately, things did not work out in his favor, and he ended up losing by a unanimous verdict.
De Ridder acknowledged that in order for the match to live up to its billing, he ought to have done more in a recent interview with the South China Morning Post:
“I’m not thrilled or sad about it, but I think it would have been amazing to choke him out. And I believe I might have stood a chance. Perhaps I ought to have taken a few more chances.
However, ‘RDR’ countered that Ruotolo also played it safe out of concern for being discovered in a precarious situation that might result in a submission. Added him:
He didn’t actually take many chances either. So in that sense, we were close. We were probably both considering how we could kind of avoid being D’arced or put to death. And the outcome is this.
Given that both competitors were feared submission specialists, it was anticipated that the middleweight grappling contest would not make it to the judges’ scorecards.
De Ridder and Ruotolo, however, balanced each other out because neither man was successful in finishing a takedown before the time ran out.
Ruotolo ultimately received the advantage and had his hand raised.
You can see the 10-minute wrestling match again here:
For its current North American users, Prime Video offers a replay of the whole ONE Fight Night 10 event.
