Kade Ruotolo has just been given a huge honor, as ONE Championship have named him as their winner of both MMA and Submission Grappling Fighter of the Year for 2024. It’s the first time that the promotion have awarded both of these titles to the same person, as last year’s Submission Grappler of the Year was Mikey Musumeci. It wasn’t too surprising that Ruotolo might win that title, given that he’s the promotion’s most active champion under that ruleset. The MMA award is the one that people might not have predicted, as he has only had two fights in his professional career so far.
Ruotolo didn’t even make his MMA debut until almost halfway through the year, but he was incredibly impressive right from the start. It took him just a little over three minutes to submit Blake Cooper at ONE 167, and it was clear from then that Ruotolo was going to have a pretty high ceiling in the promotion’s MMA divisions. He spent most of the year after that focusing on his grappling career, including an incredible run to win the under 80kg division at the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational. Despite having to split his time between competing at the highest level in two different rulesets, he was still able to return to MMA for one more fight before the year was over.
Ruotolo returned at ONE 169 and this time he finished the fight even quicker than before, as it took him just 64 seconds to submit Ahmed Mujtaba. It was these two quick wins that earned him the MMA Fighter of the Year award, and it was another two performances that won him Submission Grappling Fighter of the Year. He started out the year by successfully defending his title against Tommy Langaker at ONE 165 and although his next match was a non-title bout, it was an even more impressive display. Competing on the same card as his brother at ONE Fight Night 21, Ruotolo submitted Francisco Lo in less than five minutes.
ONE Championship announced the news that Kade Ruotolo had won both their MMA and Submission Grappling Fighter of the Year awards for 2024 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
