Tye Ruotolo has just had his next ONE Championship grappling match announced, and he will be facing off against former ONE Featherweight MMA world champion Marat Gafurov. The pair will be meeting in the cage at a catchweight of 180lbs on the preliminary card of ONE on Amazon Video 5 on December 2nd, shortly before the other Ruotolo brother Kade defends his ONE Lightweight title against Matheus Gabriel. It’s not uncommon for the brothers to arrange to compete on the same weekend, and they both made their promotional debut on the same card as well. Both Kade and Tye Ruotolo managed to defeat impressive grapplers at ONE 157, with them winning a decision against Shinya Aoki and submitting Garry Tonon respectively.
Both brothers also competed at ADCC 2022, although they had wildly different results. Kade Ruotolo managed to win gold in the 77kg division and become the youngest champion in ADCC history, while Tye was eliminated in the first round by their teammate Josh Hinger. Tye made a huge comeback in the absolute division though as he was able to win a bronze medal against significantly bigger opponents, only losing to the legendary Nicholas Meregali in the semi-final.
His opponent Marat Gafurov doesn’t have anywhere near as much submission grappling experience, but he has used his excellent skills on the mat throughout his MMA career. He went undefeated in his first fifteen fights, winning both the M-1 Global and ONE Championship featherweight world titles along the way. Although he’s alternated between wins and losses since he lost his title to Martin Nguyen in 2017, he still holds a respectable 19-4 professional MMA record with 12 submission wins.
The full ONE on Prime Video 5 event, including Tye Ruotolo taking on Marat Gafurov, will be available to watch live on December 2nd on Amazon Prime, click here to subscribe and watch.
