Issue 221

September 2025

Two belts. Two shoulders. One very big Dutch-sized problem for everyone else. Few fight fans remember that Reinier de Ridder wore ONE Championship’s middleweight and light heavyweight straps like bookends. This is a visual reminder that his game is equal parts pressure, posture, and patience. He strangled his way to the first, outclassed his way to the second, then kept stacking receipts with arm-triangles and inverted triangles that turn confident men into quiet ones. He was only defeated in ONE Championship by a beast called Anatoly Malykhin, who is a natural heavyweight. Once signed by the UFC, De Ridder went on to ice the hype around Bo Nickal and still found time to be gracious about catching a blue-chip wrestler at the right moment in his career. That calm is the tell. Champions who carry hardware like this do not chase noise. They collect it, and whether or not Brendan Allen deserves to fight De Ridder is another question worth asking. One thing is for sure: this Dutchman’s surge is unlikely to stop until he gets a shot at some UFC silverware.