After winning the ADCC 2022 World Championships 77kg division in dominant fashion, Kade Ruotolo has another challenge ahead of him…
Because on October 21, he will face a Sambo world champion for the ONE Championship’s inaugural Lightweight Submission Grappling world title!
His opponent, Uali Khurzev, is a 4x world champion in Sambo, as well as a veteran Judoka – who won both the IJF Grand Slam and the Grand Prix.
Despite that, however, Kade plans to go to full-on takedown war against his opponent. Here’s what he told Jiu-Jitsu Times:
Traditional sambo guys don’t take as many double legs as traditional wrestlers. They do a lot of trips, inside trips, maybe ankle pics, and some Greco-Roman stuff and upper body throws.
So I think he’s going to be attacking all of those, and I’m going to be attacking all of those right back, and also trying to shoot in.
Even though he is a favorite coming into the match, Kade doesn’t let that get to his head:
I always keep the same mindset, where I think: ‘This guy is trying to take what I want away from me.”
You hear a lot of guys say this, but at the end of the day, it’s true – you’ve got to make it a little bit personal.
You can’t have all love and respect for your opponent… Because that’s going to make it hard to cover his mouth and make him tired and do all those little things you have to do to really capitalize and win that match.
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