Reigning ONE Lightweight Submission Grappling World Champion Kade Ruotolo has already conquered the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so he’s now moving on to mixed martial arts.

Fresh off his recent professional MMA debut, the American superstar will soon return to his original sport and defend his gold against flyweight submission grappling kingpin Mikey “Darth Rigatoni” Musumeci.

Kade Ruotolo’s MMA journey so far

That matchup – one of the biggest and most significant in the history of BJJ – will take place on September 6 in the co-main event of ONE 168: Denver, live in U.S. primetime from Ball Arena.

As the youngest-ever ADCC World Champion and ONE World Champion, Ruotolo, at just 21 years old, has already established himself as one of the sport’s all-time greats and a true pound-for-pound powerhouse.

Understandably, his MMA debut in June at ONE 167 drew plenty of attention. That night, the Californian showcased an adept striking attack before securing a highlight-reel submission victory over Hawaiian slugger Blake Cooper. Through his preparation for that fight, Ruotolo naturally found himself grappling with MMA fighters. The BJJ phenomenon has seldom lost any of his fights when he competed in BJJ and it appears that he would like to continue his dominance in MMA as well. In his latest take, Ruotolo emphasized the difference between fighting a BJJ and an MMA fighter.

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Ruotolo highlights the wrestling influence in MMA grappling

He says that, unlike pure submission grapplers, mixed martial artists don’t attack much from their back, and when they do, they tend to follow a traditional, meat-and-potatoes approach to guard in the mold of BJJ legend Lucas Lepri.

Ruotolo explained: “I’d say most MMA fighters aren’t too fond of fighting off their back. And, if they are, it’s very old-school, traditional, you know, Lucas Lepri half-guard kind of things to get up. You’re not really seeing any MMA fighters use those guards that we see on an everyday basis in sport jiu-jitsu … De La Riva and X-guard, and things like that.”

With the addition of strikes to the equation, MMA grappling places a great deal of focus on establishing and maintaining top positions.For that reason, says Ruotolo, MMA grappling is more akin to wrestling than it is pure BJJ: “I would say it’s almost like submission wrestling. It’s how I would describe most MMA fighters’ games.”