Reinier de Ridder breaks silence following brutal finish at the hands of Anatoly Malykhin

'The Dutch Knight' Reinier de Ridder went silent after sustaining his first career loss at the hands of 'Sladkiy' Anatoly Malykhin. In the headlining fight at ONE on Prime Video 5, Malykhin became the first fighter in history to stop de Ridder, who did not speak in the post-fight interview or press conference.

After some recovery, the athlete shared his thoughts on Instagram:

"I'm ok sweet people. Took a chance and it didn't work out well this time. Life is still good. Happy to be going back to my wife and kids."

[Photo Credit: @deriddermma]

Going into the main event fight at ONE on Prime Video 5, Reinier de Ridder was undefeated and a two-division world champion. He put his ONE light heavyweight world title on the line against Russian knockout machine Malykhin.

'Sladkiy' earned a first-round KO to add the light heavyweight crown to his ONE interim world heavyweight world championship. With that, Malykhin is the newest ONE double world champion.

Malykhin is a dangerous name for anyone to fight. The Russian athlete is now on a six-fight knockout win streak. Now, the double-world titleholder can look ahead to unifying his heavyweight title against divisional king 'Singh' Arjan Bhullar.

On Instagram, Bhullar said he is ready for the showdown:

"Great weekend of fights [ONE Championship] I've been cleared since November 7th. 2 heavyweights called me out this weekend. Give me the 'scariest' one first."

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Reinier de Ridder's impressive legacy

Dutch-born fighter Reinier de Ridder was never about world titles or records. He wanted to challenge himself to prove to the world that he was the strongest man alive.

Before the match, while speaking with The MMA Superfan, de Ridder explained:

"It's not about a belt. I got enough belts here. The wall is full of belts, I got belts here, I got belts there. There are belts everywhere. But the thing is, I want to know that I'm the best in the world. And I want to show the people that I'm the best in the world, and that I can beat anybody on the planet. So that's what I'm here for."

Watch the full interview below:

De Ridder captured the middleweight and light heavyweight world titles with impressive submission wins. He challenged a heavyweight king, Anatoly Malykhin, as he is always aiming for greatness.