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Rinier de Ridder: “I Can Hang With Top Grapplers”

Rinier de Ridder: “I Can Hang With Top Grapplers”

Reinier de Ridder is in full preparation mode for his upcoming ONE Fight Night 10 on Prime Video submission grappling match against Tye Ruotolo.

The bout will take place on May 5, but “The Dutch Knight” has been training hard for it for quite some time already.
And he has also been doing so with some of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu elite in Austin, Texas:

To be honest, I’m pretty confident right now. I’ve been training with some of the ADCC champs there, in Texas; Gordon and John [Danaher] have really helped me out technique-wise.

Got a lot of rounds in with [Giancarlo] Bodoni and [Nicholas] Meregali. And to be honest, I think I did pretty well against those guys.

So yeah, I think I can hang with top grapplers. And I’m very excited to get a chance to show that this time.

De Ridder believes that the match against Ruotolo will come down to proper energy expenditure strategy:

I think it’s gonna be a very close matchup. Very explosive… And the one who can conserve his energy for the 10-minute round will come on top in the end.

However, he’s also very confident in his ability, considering the amount of work he’s been putting into just grappling:

[The match against] Galvao I took on three week’s notice, coming from an MMA fight. Not really having any time to prepare for grappling.

And now, I’ve just been grappling for months and I’ll be grappling for two more months, before the match happens.

That gives me a lot of confidence. I can hang with the best in the world while just doing MMA… Maybe I can submit more of the best in the world if I’m just focused on grappling.