Reinier De Ridder Defends Title Against Vitaly Bigdash, Sets Sights On Heavyweight Division

This afternoon at ONE 159, Reinier De Ridder once again exemplified that he is unstoppable in ONE’s Light Heavyweight division, moving to 16-0 and retaining his Light Heavyweight title, winning a $50,000 bonus in the process.

The challenger and former ONE Middleweight champion, Vitaly Bigdash found himself being pressured from the opening bell, as “The Dutch Knight” made his intentions clear. Within the first minute of the fight, De Ridder initiated a level change and had Vitaly pushed against the fence. Bigdash decided to try and wrap up a guillotine and fully committed to the attempt by jumping to wrap his legs around the body of the champion.

The experience of the Dutch champion was exhibited, as whilst Bigdash had his arms around De Ridder’s neck, the champion stayed composed and didn’t panic, not allowing the challenger to sink the choke in deeper. Despite De Ridder keeping his composure, Bigdash managed to elevate his hips momentarily, tightening the choke and sending the champions face purple.

After fighting the hands of Bigdash, the 31-year-old champion managed to break the grip of Bigdash, and didn’t take long to make him regret jumping the choke. De Ridder had Vitaly stacked, but Bigdash didn’t attempt to break the guard of “The Dutch Knight” allowing some short ground and pound to land.

After releasing the guard, Bigdash found himself almost fully mounted but did well to keep De Ridder in half guard. De Ridder decided to attempt a submission of his own, and started threatening with a kimura. Bigdash did extremely well to scramble out and push off the fence, nullifying the kimura attempt, finding himself in full guard.

Like a flash, whilst on his back, De Ridder threw his legs over the head of Bigdash, attempting a Triangle-choke. Just seconds later, the choke became tighter and Bigdash went to sleep, moving De Ridder to 16-0, retaining his Light Heavyweight title.

In his in cage interview, De Ridder said: “Anybody in the world, I’ll strangle anyone on the planet. I thought it’d be the second round but I got him, this is a move I do a lot in training. I do this every training session, almost every roll I catch people with this, if I train with new people, I catch them with it every time.”

The 2-division champion didn’t mince his words when asked what he wants next, he said: “I’m done asking, you know what I want (talking about the ONE Heavyweight title fight), I want them both (Bhullar and Malykhin) in the same night, I’m ready man.”