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ONE middleweight MMA king and former two-division world titleholder Reinier de Ridder is set to defend his throne in a rematch with the man who viciously took his light-heavyweight belt, Anatoly Malykhin.
'The Dutch Knight' will rematch the heavy-handed 'Sladkiy', who also holds both ONE heavyweight and light-heavyweight MMA world titles, at ONE 166: Qatar on March 1.
Main eventing ONE's inaugural live event in the beautiful Middle Eastern country of Qatar, Reinier de Ridder is excited to showcase his skills, particularly his grappling wizardry.
He told ONE:
“Yeah, I'm a grappler. I'm going to submit guys. So it makes sense that I'm going to this big show in the Middle East. Yeah, I don't know. But it's something that's very important for the region. Like in Abu Dhabi, all the kids train jiu-jitsu. They have jiu-jitsu in schools. Yeah, it's another nice thing, but the only focus is choking one guy out.”
The upcoming rematch will be at the lowest weight class Malykhin has ever fought in, ONE middleweight which has a limit of 205 pounds. Perhaps at a lower weight class, Reinier de Ridder has better chances of imposing his will and dominating a lighter Malykhin on the ground. Only time will tell.
Reinier de Ridder says being undefeated made him overconfident in first fight with Malykhin
In their first clash in late 2022, de Ridder lost his undefeated record together with his light-heavyweight belt via a vicious 1st-round KO by Malykhin. 'Sladkiy' will look to finish the job by taking de Ridder's 205-pound strap at ONE 166 and becoming the first-ever three-division MMA world champion.
On being undefeated and subsequently being handed his first loss in a world-title-losing effort, 'The Dutch Knight' told ONE:
"You win 16 in a row, and to be honest, not to sound arrogant because I’m not trying to be arrogant, it always went pretty easily in the fights.”
Watch Reinier de Ridder right his wrongs against Anatoly Malylhin at ONE 166: Qatar, which will live on March 1 free of charge for existing Prime Video subscribers in the United States and Canada.
