Reinier de Ridder.
O
NE Championship superstar Reinier de Ridder is the ONE Middleweight and Light Heavyweight World Champion for good reason. His unbeaten record continues to grow as his dominant all-around skill set has left some of the promotion’s biggest stars picking up the pieces after facing him in the Circle.
After successfully defending his middleweight crown against Vitaly Bigdash at ONE 159 earlier this year, “The Dutch Knight” is hungry for a new challenge. And since ONE Heavyweight World Champion Arjan Bhullar has pulled out of his title unification bout with Anatoly Malykhin at ONE 161 slated for Sept. 29 due to injury, he thinks he may have found it.
The Dutchman has laid claim to the now empty slot in the highly anticipated match in an Instagram post, accompanied by an edited photo of his face replacing Bhullar’s.
“Arjan Bhullar is out of the heavyweight title fight, as expected. I know a guy who would step in. ONE Championship, Chatri Sityodtong, watch me write history,” De Ridder wrote.
It is not all that surprising that the native of Breda, the Netherlands, is looking for something new.
After all, he has held the ONE Middleweight and ONE Light Heavyweight World Titles since 2020 and 2021, respectively. He also successfully retained his middleweight belt for the second time in his win against Bigdash, having bested Kiamrian Abbasov at ONE: FULL CIRCLE in February.
De Ridder is not only a dominant athlete but also a natural performer, and he is constantly looking for his next opportunity to entertain the crowd. In March, he stepped away from MMA to take on grappling great Andre Galvao in a submission grappling match at ONE X, simply for the challenge it held for him.
His ultimate objective, however, is to become the organization’s first-ever triple World Champion, and he has made some truly bold statements about how he plans to go about achieving this.
“The goal is to do something nobody else can. I did that by becoming a champ. I did that by becoming a double-champ. And now I want to keep going, beating everybody in the world. Because that’s special,” De Ridder said.
“They’re talking about doing Malykhin and Bhullar first, but let me have my shot first. Both of them on the same night. I don’t care. [ONE] does mixed-rule stuff, so why not two opponents? Let’s do it.”
In the meantime, download the ONE Super App to catch all the action at ONE 161: Petchmorakot vs. Tawanchai on Thursday, Sept. 29, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
This article was published in collaboration with ONE Championship.