Reinier De Ridder has been a wrecking ball since arriving on the global stage of ONE Championship. The undefeated Dutchman has stormed up the ranks to grab the ONE Middleweight and Light Heavyweight World Championships.
And he defeated the same man, Aung La N Sang, to win both belts.
But that doesn’t mean there are any bad feelings among the competitors. In fact, during De Ridder’s recent U.S. sojourn, the two talented athletes trained with one another at Kill Cliff Fight Club.
“They were very warm, very friendly, and very welcoming. So it was a true pleasure — very nice people. Aung met my wife, met my kids. Yeah, it was very nice,” said De Ridder.
“I talked to Henri [Hooft] a couple of times when I was there in Singapore. As he’s Dutch as I am, it was easy talking to him. We had some meals together up there, and he told me why don’t you come over once. I said, ‘Yeah, I might,’ and I brought my family and made it a trip.”
The meeting may have had a touch of fate as well. De Ridder is scheduled to return at ONE 159 on Friday, July 22, against Vitaly Bigdash. The man “The Burmese Python” has spent over an hour with inside the ONE Circle.
The reigning two-division World Champion tapped into the knowledge base of both Aung La N Sang and Hooft to get a little better idea of the challenge that awaits him at ONE 159.
“Yes, definitely. I asked him for some advice,” admitted De Ridder.
“Henry’s coaching was very welcomed as well, and it’s a room full of killers there. It’s not like a couple of pros like we have here in Holland. But there were 60 or 70 pros on the mat every morning and evening. So it was very, very helpful for me. Very interesting stuff.”
“[Aung La N Sang] told me that [Bigdash] was pretty massive and that he missed weight twice. But hey, there’s not a lot there that I didn’t see already in the videos before. And he told me what I already know – that I’m going to dominate this guy.”
“The Dutch Knight” has already been scouting the videos of Bigdash ahead of their main event matchup.
While De Ridder is respectful of his skills, he is also supremely confident that the Russian will not be able to muster much of a challenge on July 22, calling him predictable.
“He takes his time, picks his shots. There are a lot of single shots on the feet, which is smart sometimes. His shots are pretty straight, pretty clean. But he is predictable, and he gets tired very easily,” stated the Dutchman.
“He’s going to be tired by the end of the first. I mean, he is going to be done by the end of the second.”
De Ridder takes on Bigdash at ONE 159 on Friday, July 22, at 6 a.m. EST/3 a.m. PST on watch.onefc.com.
