“My striking offense was just sh**” – Reinier de Ridder admits to glaring holes in his game in first fight with Anatoly Malykhin

ONE middleweight MMA world champion Reinier de Ridder has identified his deficiencies ahead of his highly anticipated rematch with two-division ONE world champion Anatoly Malykhin.

Malykhin and de Ridder first met at ONE on Prime Video 5 in December 2022. At the time, the Russian juggernaut was the ONE interim heavyweight MMA world champion, but he had his sights set on two-division glory, challenging ‘The Dutch Knight’ for his ONE light heavyweight MMA world title. It took Malykhin less than a round to KO out de Ridder, adding another 26 pounds of gold to his collection.

Looking back on his first-round destruction, Reinier de Ridder believes he has fixed many of the issues that prevented him from being competitive with ‘Sladkiy’ in their first showdown:

“But looking back I was pretty close with a couple of the takedowns, and I was just off with my striking defense,” de Ridder said in an interview with ONE Championship. “My striking offense was just shit. Entries of my takedown were very, very bad. So yeah, I've had a lot to work on.

“And I have and I've had a lot of time to work on all those aspects. And I've been grinding and I'm very anxious to show off what I've been working on.”

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Will Anatoly Malykhin make history against Reinier de Ridder at ONE 166?

Since finishing the Dutchman decisively, Anatoly Malykhin has traded in his interim heavyweight title for undisputed gold, besting former world titleholder Arjan Bhullar in a world title unification clash at ONE Friday Fights 22 in June.

With Reinier de Ridder putting his last remaining belt — the ONE middleweight MMA world championship — on the line at ONE 166, a win for Malykhin will make him the promotion’s first-ever three-division champion.

Will ‘Sladkiy’ etch his name in the history books come fight night, or will ‘The Dutch Knight’ redeem himself and even the series with Malykhin at 1-1 at Lusail Sports Arena?

Amazon Prime Video subscribers in North America can catch all the action at ONE 166: Qatar live and for free on Friday, March 1.