Tye Ruotolo recently revealed that he’s planning on making his professional MMA debut at some point in 2025. It’s been quite s long time coming, but he’s had quite few other things to focus on and even some recent injuries to overcome. As a Jiu-Jitsu competitor first and foremost, Ruotolo has pursued a ONE Championship title and challenged himself in the Craig Jones Invitational last year. That’s actually when disaster struck, as Ruotolo suffered a knee injury in the second round that required many months of rest and rehabilitation. He’s also been busy building out the brand new gym that he now owns with his brother in Costa Rica, all at the same time.
Although both Tye and Kade planned to transition to MMA in 2023 originally, both brothers had to delay those plans for various reasons. After suffering that injury, Tye then had to sit on the sidelines and watch Kade progress to 3-0 in his MMA career. Although he’s now a few fights behind his brother, Tye still has every intention of going down that path with him:
“Yeah, 100%. Kade and I just, it’s almost we find it more fun than anything, you know? It’s really just a beautiful sport and we have so much fun doing it, so as soon as I get past this next match.”
He does have a more pressing issue to attend to though, as he’s currently preparing for a grappling title-defense against Dante Leon at ONE Fight Night 31. Tye Ruotolo might be planning on making his MMA debut, but he is still focused on his first match of 2025:
”I’m not looking past Dante (Leon), you know? Whole focus on Dante right now but once we get past him, we’ll get a match booked real soon.”
Ruotolo has spent plenty of time preparing for his MMA debut already though, including Muay Thai sessions at the legendary Superbon Training Camp. It obviously doesn’t hurt that he has the ideal training partner at home as well, and now Kade can even share his experience in the cage when they next have MMA sparring rounds. All that work behind the scenes has clearly made Ruotolo feel ready and when asked if he wanted to make his debut this year, he didn’t hesitate:
“Yes, guaranteed. That’s the plan. As long as everything goes according to plan, for sure.”
The full interview with Tye Ruotolo where he talks about his MMA debut in 2025 is now available to watch on the official JitsMagazine YouTube channel, click here to subscribe for more or check out the interview below:
