LOOK: Reinier de Ridder training with Gordon Ryan and Nicholas Meregali to prepare for Tye Ruotolo

Reinier 'The Dutch Knight' de Ridder is rolling with legendary company in preparation for Tye Ruotolo at ONE Fight Night 10. The Dutch ground specialist will leave the MMA gloves for one night and will lock horns with the 20-year-old phenom in a submisson grappling match.

Despite the high chance that de Ridder will outweigh Tye Ruotolo by a significant amount come fight night, many are not seeing this as a mismatch. The young Ruotolo has proven many times that he can handle bigger men and even beat them in high-level competition.

De Ridder is definitely seeing it this way as he chose to train with bigger men in preparation for the May 5 clash. He posted it on his Instagram:

"All easy rounds today 😂"

That little emoji at the end has a snarky sense of sarcasm as Gordon Ryan (second from left) and Nicholas Meregali (far right) might be the two best big men in the entire sport of jiujitsu. Ryan is largely considered the greatest No-Gi grappler of all time, while Meregali is an ADCC Absolutes silver medalist and three-time IBJJF world champion.

Meregali also beat Tye Ruotolo in the semi-finals of the 2022 ADCC Absolutes bracket and went on to win the silver medal that year.

---

The history of beef between Tye Ruotolo and Gordon Ryan

Reinier de Ridder training with Gordon Ryan and his team might also play some mind games with Tye Ruotolo. The prodigious blackbelt has had quite the beef with Ryan, which spilled over on social media over the the course of a few weeks.

The beef started when Ryan's teammate Nicholas Meregali barely got a win over Ruotolo, who was a far smaller competitor. The young blackbelt then sent out a cheeky call-out directed at 'The King':

"Remember that Darce at Modolfo? It would be competitive now and I’m 19 and natural. I guarantee you retire before I gain 15 pounds. Pure facts, no ill intent. Let’s do the same deal you did with Pena. No time limit."

Gordon Ryan, never to be out-trash-talked, boldly commented on the post:

"How about you put up your 50k win bonus from ONE and I'll put up my same 100k that I did with pena? 2-1 odds no time limit. Just remember, I'm not Josh hinger, and you couldn't beat him"

Ryan was referring to Tye Ruotolo's performance bonus when he beat Ryan's teammate Garry Tonon in ONE Championship. Ruotolo responded with a much longer rant on social media to which Ryan responded with a long rant of his own. But somehow, the beef just fizzled out from there.

With de Ridder training with Ryan for ONE Fight Night 10, however, the rivalry might yet again get sparked. Best that we stay tuned.