Kade Ruotolo is known for his nonstop pace on the mats. But away from competition, there’s one place where everything slows down completely: the ocean.
Following a devastating ACL injury that sidelined him for over a year, Ruotolo revealed that fishing became one of the most important parts of his recovery process.
The injury came shortly after his MMA victory at ONE Championship’s ONE 171: Qatar event in early 2025.
What followed was a long rehabilitation process that forced him to step away from competition entirely.
Here is what he said in an interview for ONE:
It was pretty rough for sure – not being able to really do anything. I even had to learn how to walk again.
Fishing was a good thing for my mental health.
The connection to the ocean goes back years.
Growing up in Southern California alongside his twin brother Tye Ruotolo, the brothers spent much of their free time surfing, skating, and fishing whenever they weren’t training:
It’s always just been jiu-jitsu, surfing, and fishing.
We’d go get on a boat in the ocean in the middle of nowhere and just go catch some fish when we wanted to get away from our parents.
For Ruotolo, fishing eventually became much more than a hobby.
During recovery, it gave him something combat sports rarely allows – silence:
The endless internal dialogue every fighter carries around with them stops. The ocean is healing, and it is a completely different world out there.
That isolation and calm became especially meaningful during a period where he was unable to compete, train normally, or even move the way he was used to:
There aren’t many places where I live where you can go get away from everybody.
But you go get on a boat in the water, and you look around, and there’s no one around.
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