Ruotolo Brothers On Potential Brother vs Brother Bout

The Ruotolo brothers, Kade and Tye run in ONE Championship continues to go from strength to strength.  

The Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, Philippines, hosted ONE On Prime Video 5: De Ridder vs. Malykhin on Friday, 2nd December, where fans witnessed the dynamic duo successfully showcase their grappling abilities once again. 

The co-main event saw Kade battle to a unanimous decision victory against decorated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu star Matheus Gabriel to successfully defend his ONE Lightweight Submission Grappling World Championship for the first time.

And earlier in the evening, Tye executed a slick triangle armlock to submit former ONE Featherweight World Champion Marat Gafurov and keep his 100 per cent finishing rate intact.

Since arriving in ONE, the 19-year-old grappling phenoms have had plans to dominate their respective divisions. But, having already dispatched four elite grapplers between them, the Californian natives aren’t completely against the idea of a brother-versus-brother showdown inside the Circle.

“Kade has the 170-pound belt and I can still make it down to 170 with some time,” said Tye. 

“I want to be fighting for a belt, and my brother and I can have a match at some point, for sure. We can market that. It would be crazy. An absolute barnburner of a match.”

The twins last met in competition in the IBJJF 2021 World Championship Final, where Tye stood tall as the victor. And that wasn’t the first time that occurred in competition. 

Though Kade holds the gold in ONE, he hopes to eventually avenge the trio of losses he has amassed against his brother.

“I’m technically 0-3 against Tye, so I want that one more than he does,” he admitted.

Despite being open to squaring off against his kin on ONE’s global stage, Tye fails to see it as a priority. In fact, he has been actively focusing on competing in a different weight class to his brother in order to avoid disrupting their competitive campaigns. 

There may be a strong competitive drive between them, but the brotherly love and support they share remains most important. 

“I started fighting bigger people a little while ago, and the reason for that being is because my brother and I, we always were the same size growing up,” Tye stated. 

“The last couple of years, I’ve had maybe a five-pound weight advantage on him, so I’ve just been going up in divisions so we can stay away from each other. 

“At the end of the day, I don’t like to fight him that much. He’s super tough, and it’s my brother at the end of the day. I’ve been moving up, fighting all the big guys, and I’m figuring out the formula.”