Tye Ruotolo has just had his second professional MMA fight booked and he’ll be facing Shozo Isojima at ONE 173 on November 16th, 2025. It’s a very quick turnaround for Ruotolo as he only made his debut in September, just a little under 10 weeks before his fight with Isojima takes place. It helps that he suffered virtually no damage in that fight though of course, as the fight only lasted two rounds and he was in control for almost all of it. It would have been an impressive performance no matter who he was fighting but it was fellow top prospect Adrian Lee that Ruotolo dominated at ONE Fight Night 35.
Ruotolo is clearly not looking for any easy fights or a way to build up his resume slowly though, as Isojima is another undefeated fighter. The difference between his and Lee’s record is that he actually has twice as many fights though, as he currently sits at 6-0. Isojima has faced several veterans with as many as 15 fights during his career so far and with 4 of his fights ending in decision, he has a huge amount of time in the cage too. He’s spent well over an hour fighting at this level; which is more than 7 times as long as Ruotolo has.
Isojima also had a successful ONE Championship debut of his own shortly after Ruotolo, finishing Nicolas Vigna in the second round at ONE Fight Night 36. All this to say that Iwojima will be a very tough test for the BJJ star and if he manages to pass this one as easily as he did his first, he’ll be shooting up the lightweight rankings in no time. Ruotolo has already said that he intends to become an MMA world champion and it’s clear that he doesn’t want to wait around for his chance. If he keeps taking out all of the rising stars in his weight class and beats a few veteran contenders along the way, he’ll be getting a shot at the title in pretty short order.
ONE Championship announced the news that Tye Ruotolo was going to face Shozo Isojima at ONE 173 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
