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Gordon Ryan hailed Reinier de Ridder after 'The Dutch Knight' stopped by for some rolls with a few of his ONE Championship colleagues.
The ONE middleweight and light heavyweight champion has trained at various gyms in recent months, and he's been getting rounds in with some of the best in the business.
The Dutchman’s latest stop was at the Renzo Gracie Academy in Austin, Texas, where he got stuck in with 'The Iron Dragon' and fellow ONE athlete Garry Tonon.
Speaking about the experience of training with de Ridder, Gordon Ryan wrote the following post on Instagram:
"Just a couple of @onechampionship boys. @deriddermma was in town for some time and I had the pleasure of training with him both gi and no gi. Luckily he was only allowed to grab my sleeves and collars and not punch me in the face 😂. Its always so great to train with legit world champions from different arts. De Ridder is a very unusual case because not only is he a ONE 2 division mma champion, he's a black belt in judo and jiu jitsu and is actually a multiple time IBJFF European champion. He has such an interesting approach to grappling and it was a pleasure training with him. You're welcome back anytime, my friend."
Gordon Ryan is yet to make his ONE Championship debut, but de Ridder is undoubtedly on the list of potential opponents. The Breda-born fighter has openly shown interest in facing Ryan in either BJJ or MMA and recently competed against the American's long-time rival Andre Galvao. De Ridder had a commendable draw with the Brazilian in a submission grappling match at ONE X.
Reinier de Ridder describes training with Gordon Ryan and co. as "jiu jitsu heaven"
The double champion is arguably one of the most dangerous grapplers in MMA but was quick to pay homage to Ryan and the Danaher Death Squad, for whom he clearly has tremendous respect.
Writing on his Instagram page, de Ridder said:
"Texas boys. I have died and gone to jiu jitsu heaven or I flew to jiu jitsu heaven and died there. But I definitely feel dead right now. Life is good, thank you guys."
Submission grappling has become increasingly popular at ONE Championship, with the organization signing up some of the best BJJ talents in the world. Meanwhile, Gordon Ryan has expressed an interest in transitioning to MMA, so it will be interesting to see if he's standing across the circle from his newfound friend from the Netherlands one day.
