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Reinier de Ridder has hunted down the biggest challenges he can face since signing with ONE Championship in 2019. In his seven fights with the promotion, de Ridder has already faced and beaten the likes of Kiamrian Abbasov, Vitaly Bigdash, and Aung La N Sang twice.
At ONE on Prime Video 5, de Ridder will once again take on another dangerous task when he defends his light heavyweight world championship against ONE interim heavyweight world champion Anatoly Malykhin.
In an appearance on the Morning Kombat podcast, ‘The Dutch Knight’ spoke about another one of the world's most dangerous competitors who is also hunting down big challenges in two weight classes.
Khamzat Chimaev has become one of the most talked about fighters in the world since his UFC debut in 2020. Speaking about the Chechen-born Swede, Reinier de Ridder said:
“We’ve trained together. It’s an interesting fight for me. Maybe [he could dominate everyone].”
He added:
“This MMA thing is a weird thing because you’re always looking for the hardest challenge. You’re always looking for the next best guy. Sometimes I feel like it’s kind of an old-school warrior thing. You’re looking for a hero’s death. You’re looking for the best guy who might be able to beat you.”
Watch the full interview below:
“Pushed me to get even better in grappling” - Missed submissions forced Reinier de Ridder to improve grappling
It’s not often that Reinier de Ridder can be too disappointed with his performances, given his undefeated record. The two-division world champion recently spoke about the one fight in his career that motivated him to make some much-needed changes.
In April of 2021, Reinier de Ridder took on Aung La N Sang for the second time on short notice to fight for his light heavyweight world championship. After submitting the former double world champion in their first fight, ‘The Dutch Knight’ was unable to finish his opponent the second time around.
In another appearance on Morning Kombat, the 32-year-old spoke about his second fight with ‘The Burmese Python’ and what he took away from it:
“It really pushed me to get even better in grappling. Because now after that, I really focused on some of the chokes that I missed, especially on the side choke, the head-and-arm triangle, which I was a bit sloppy with in the second Aung fight. Fortunately I was able to get Abbasov with it twice.”
