Kade Ruotolo recently made an appearance on the JAXXON podcast and revealed that his MMA debut might actually be a lot closer than people think, as he’s looking at booking it for just a few month’s time. He’s been one of the best no gi grapplers around for a while and even became the youngest ADCC world champion in 2022, but both him and his brother Tye Ruotolo have been open about wanting to transition to MMA in the future. Although they’re still relatively early in their combat sports careers, they’ve already been working towards that goal and even planned on making their respective MMA debuts in 2023 initially.
Things don’t always go to plan of course, but Kade Ruotolo hasn’t stopped working towards his MMA debut and he’s apparently attempting to book it for later this year:
“I just put in the work, I think the debut’s coming. It’s looking like June 4th… I believe Thailand. We’re still getting it 100% in writing and everything, but that’s what it’s looking like. It was going to be earlier but I think June 4th is going to be it. (On) Amazon Prime I think, ONE Championship.”
While this isn’t the first time that Ruotolo has laid out plans for his MMA career, this is the first time that he’s named a specific date on the horizon. He was asked about whether he had any opponent booked yet or whether there was any specific opponents he wanted to face, but that’s still being arranged at the moment:
“There’s a couple. There’s one guy that talks, we’re gonna see how it’s going with him. Just trying to weigh out the options, there’s a couple more guys so we’ll see. But it’s definitely looking like June… Honestly, I don’t really care you know? I feel like a fight’s a fight, regardless of what style of fighting. It doesn’t really matter to me, Jiu-Jitsu guy, striker, whatever.”
Kade Ruotolo still has something else to think about before he makes his MMA debut though, as he will be facing Francisco Lo in a catchweight submission grappling superfight at ONE Fight Night 21. Most fighters will shy away from competing in different combat sports rulesets during the same time period, but that isn’t something that bothers the Ruotolo brothers. In fact, Kade Ruotolo recently made his black belt gi debut in impressive fashion and he’s always looked for new challenges throughout his career. Obviously there’s a lot more to worry about when it comes to MMA though, so Ruotolo was asked about how good he is at wrestling:
“In the most humble way possible, I think it’s pretty good… I love wrestling, I grew up wrestling too you know? My whole life, with my brother. We’d always dabble with high school wrestling classes.”
While that’s how he would be able to get the fight to where he wants it most, any MMA fighter also has to prepare to get stuck somewhere they don’t want to be as well. That’s exactly what the Ruotolo brothers have been doing though, and they’ve even been spotted training Muay Thai at the Superbon Training Camp. Their striking is still completely untested from a competitive standpoint though, but Kade Ruotolo even gave an insight in to how that’s been developing ahead of his MMA debut too:
“It’s been coming along for sure. I’m definitely no Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali in the hands yet but it’s been coming along for me, I’d like to say, pretty fast. I’m definitely comfortable, that’s been the main adjustment. I’m comfortable on my feet.”
As the reigning ONE Championship submission grappling lightweight champion and youngest ADCC world champion in history, Ruotolo is used to having a high level of success and high standards for himself. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how far he can go in MMA, and he was even asked if there was any fighters who he models his game after or really likes:
“That’s a great question. My favorite forever has been Nate Diaz, it just doesn’t get more OG than that. The first thing is just how stubborn, how ruthless… he could be just absolutely outgunned and next thing you know he’s coming back. That was always my favorite thing about him. The fact he was always natural too, that’s another big thing. I’m sure you know there’s so much crazy amount of steroids in every sport really nowadays, you know? So to have someone like that kinda pioneer staying natural, just keeping it G. He’s one of my favorites, man.”
The full interview with Kade Ruotolo where he revealed that his MMA debut should be coming up in just a few months was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the JAXXON podcast:
