The Ruotolo brothers have just started building their very own BJJ gym from the ground up in Marbella, Costa Rica. The siblings have been two of the most popular figures in the professional grappling world for several years now, ever since they burst onto the scene as exciting teenage prospects. They quickly developed from promising teenagers to fully-fledged adult competitors around 2019 to 2020 when Tye Ruotolo finished fourth in his ADCC debut and they both racked up wins over impressive grapplers like Jeremy Skinner, Vagner Rocha, Ethan Crelinsten, Nicky Ryan, and Ashley Williams.
They continued their impressive performances throughout 2021 with both brothers winning their respective divisions at the WNO Championships and Kade Ruotolo winning the North American ADCC trials. It was a strong year for both men and in a somewhat poetic fashion, they actually fought each other for their final match at brown belt where Tye defeated Kade to take home the gold medal at the IBJJF world championships. Before the year was out, they finished it in style by receiving their promotion to black belt by their long-time coach and ATOS founder Andre Galvao.
In 2022 they both signed contracts to compete for ONE Championship and won their debut matches in impressive fashion. After Tye’s impressive performance in 2019, he was invited back to compete again at ADCC 2022 and he moved up to 88kg to avoid being in the same division as Kade. Although he went out in the opening round of his division, he returned to compete in the absolute division and put on an amazing performance to come away with a bronze medal. While this was going on, Kade actually managed to dominate his own division at 77kg and won a gold medal.
This performance, coupled with his phenomenal ONE Championship debut against Shinya Aoki, led to Kade being invited to compete for the promotion’s inaugural Lightweight title against a Sambo world champion. Kade managed to submit Uali Khurzev to claim the title and both of the brothers look eager to continue their performances for years to come. It remains to be seen how soon the Ruotolo brothers will be able to start training in their new BJJ gym in Costa Rica, but the project looks well underway already.
The Ruotolo brothers announced the news that they were building themselves a gym in Costa Rica in a recent post to their official Instagram account, and they expanded in the comments on the exact location too:
