“It's only there in certain situations” - Reinier de Ridder reveals Anatoly Malykhin’s best weapons

ONE on Prime Video 5 main event fighter Reinier de Ridder is far from impressed by ONE interim heavyweight champion Anatoly Malykhin, even though he carries a 100% finish rate under the ONE Championship banner.

The two men are scheduled to square off in this Friday’s main event as ONE Championship heads to the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila for a stacked double-header of can’t-miss combat sports weekend. With fight night quickly approaching, ‘The Dutch Knight’ took a moment to speak with The MMA Superfan about his highly-anticipated champion vs. champion clash with the Russian juggernaut.

During their conversation, de Ridder was mostly dismissive of Anatoly Malykhin’s power and status as an undefeated knockout artist:

“He has power but it's only there in certain situations. It's not like he knocks people dead from close range or whatever. It's not like he has a lot of tools to knock people out. He only has a wild swinging right hand and wild swinging left hand. It's not that special, to be honest.”

Fans in North America can catch all the action this Friday night in U.S. primetime with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription.

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Reinier de Ridder is not impressed by Anatoly Malykhin’s ground game

It’s not just Anatoly Malykhin’s striking that Reinier de Ridder is unimpressed with. ‘The Dutch Knight’ doesn’t see much of a threat in the undefeated Russian’s ground game either. He commented on Malykhin's ground skills by saying:

“His grappling is not really there. His jiu-jitsu game has not evolved, at all, as far as I’ve seen his fights. I’m not sure if training-wise, if he spends a lot of time on the floor. He doesn’t pass guard. He only gets takedowns and he stays at full guard and tries to pound the guy out – which he’s pretty successful at, though. I’m not being too critical there.”

To be fair, ‘The Dutch Knight’ may be a little strict when it comes to what he considers to be quality grappling. After all, he currently sits at 16-0 with an impressive 12 victories by way of submission. He’ll try to make it 13 this Friday night. That could prove to be a tough test against an opponent that is undeniably more powerful than anyone de Ridder has faced inside the circle thus far.

Will Reinier de Ridder get it done one more time at ONE on Prime Video 5, or will Anatoly Malykhin end de Ridder’s reign in the light heavyweight division?