2022 has been a fantastic year for Kade Ruotolo. He became the youngest-ever ADCC world champion (at just 19 years of age) and then won, as well as defended, the ONE Championship lightweight submission grappling world title.

But Kade isn’t focused on just preserving and expanding his success in Jiu-Jitsu. He is also eyeing a transition to mixed martial arts (MMA).
The champion revealed his plans for the future during the most recent ONE Championship post-fight press conference:

For the submission grappling, I reckon I’ll try to defend this belt as much as I can.
Stay here for now, especially now that my brother is a division above me, possibly, taking on all the big guys right now.

As far as MMA goes, I reckon I’ll be fighting about 170lbs. Possibly even get down to 155lbs too, we’ll see.
But yeah, honestly, we’ll see with time for sure.

For the time being, Kade is focused on bringing about exciting submission grappling matches… Which he is sure a lot of other athletes could do, given how much ONE Championship is doing for the sport:

It’s up to the athletes to make it exciting and that’s kind of been the whole back of this Jiu-Jitsu… A lot of athletes play by the rules and try to squeak out wins and I think that’s why ONE is the future in submission grappling.

Their ruleset, they make it exciting and they bring exciting people on. So as long as ONE keeps doing that, the future is bright, for sure.