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Reigning ONE welterweight submission grappling world champion Tye Ruotolo will defend his belt at ONE Fight Night 21 tonight against Aussie rising star Izaak Michell. Ruotolo, alongside his twin brother and fellow ONE world champion Kade, is truly a generational athlete.
At just 21 years of age, the young Ruotolo is already defending a world title. Some athletes would retire at twice that age and would never see gold their entire careers. One of his most notable outings was his bronze medal-winning performance in the Absolutes openweight category of the 2022 ADCC World Championships.
Tye Ruotolo spoke about running through former Absolutes and divisional IBJJF No-Gi world champion Pedro Marinho in the opening round of the brackets, telling ONE Championship:
"One hundred percent. Even that last Pedro match, the first start was pretty slow, the first couple of minutes I was breaking him. It was on. I was feeling good and I kinda caught one to the face and it pi**ed me off a little bit."
"I gave him one back, and he caught me a couple more in the face. It is what it is, it’s a fight. After that, it was on, all gas, no breaks. Ended up breaking him, subbing him. I know he wants that rematch, too, and I’m always down for that," he added.
After beating the bigger Marinho via RNC. Ruotolo went on to defeat former ADCC Absolutes world champion Felipe Pena before narrowly losing to the Absolutes silver medalist Nicholas Meregali.
Watch the Marinho bout here:
Tye Ruotolo may face ONE Fight Night 21 opponent Izaak Michell once again at ADCC Worlds 2024
As it turned out, Tye Ruotolo will return to ADCC this year to compete in the -88kg category and the Absolutes division. Interestingly, his opponent tonight, Izaak Michell, will also be competing in the same weight class.
It would be interesting that, regardless of how the world title match tonight turns out, the loser will want to exact revenge at ADCC 2024, opening up to possible rivalry for the ages.
ONE Fight Night 21 will air live on Primetime free of charge for existing Prime Video subscribers in North America.
