This weekend at the UFC Apex, a new arrival makes his debut in the promotion in a move that has been spoken about for many years.
Former ONE Championship star Reinier de Ridder has long been considered to be one of the most talented fighters outside of the UFC.
After parting ways with the promotion earlier this year, "The Dutch Knight" has finally made his way to the Octagon where on his first ever UFC fight week, he was excited to talk to the media:
"It's amazing, it's very cool to finally be here. I've been talking to you guys about this for years and it's finally here so yeah, I'm very happy."
De Ridder is the former ONE middleweight and light heavyweight champion but after being so successful in Asia, it looked like he may never got the opportunity to compete inside the Octagon.
"To be honest, I never really think like this. It is here right now, I'm going to make sure I capitalize on this moment, that's all there there is to it. I've had a lot of good years, a lot of good success. I've been fairly inactive over the last couple of years and I'm happy to be able to be making up for those lost years now."
For his debut fight this weekend at UFC Vegas 100, de Ridder draws one of the few opponents who can match his impressive submission record.
Gerald Meerschaert is a fascinating match-up and one that the Dutch grappler isn't taking for granted.
"Yeah definitely. To be honest, if I can ever get close to one of the records he holds, it would be amazing. So cool to see him fight, I've always watched his fights and this is a great thing as well for this fight, there's so much tape to study, he has so much fights. He has a really typical style, the way he finishes fights are very typical. He has a few things that he's very dangerous at. He has a few things he does which I think I can really capitalize on as well but it's a great match-up. I'm very happy that they've given me him for my first fight as he's a veteran, he's a real name and I think if I can really put a stamp on this one, I have some leverage to start calling out some bigger names."
Though he's trying to focus on being in the moment for this fight after looking too far ahead at points in his career, de Ridder is also wanting to make a statement.
He wants to finally fight the top guys in the UFC after speaking about the prospect of doing it for so long and in his opinion, in order to make that happen, he needs to stop Meerschaert in impressive fashion.
"Nah, a win is not enough in this one. The top dogs finish Gerald and I want to prove I'm one of them."
