Reinier de Ridder is among the millions of fans looking forward to watching ONE Championship crown an undisputed Heavyweight World Champion this weekend.
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At ONE Friday Fights 22, on Friday, June 23, divisional king Arjan Bhullar and interim titleholder Anatoly Malykhin are set to finally meet to settle who the true king of the division is once and for all.
The match has been a long time coming, and “The Dutch Knight” is interested to see how it turns out.
The former two-division king was planning a move to heavyweight last year as he was hunting for Bhullar’s World Title. But with the Indian-Canadian star inactive due to a contract dispute, he took on Malykhin’s challenge of his light heavyweight crown instead.
De Ridder experienced the interim heavyweight king’s power at ONE on Prime Video 5 in December, and he suffered the first loss of his career as a result, via a devastating knockout in the opening frame.
High praises for Anatoly Malykhin
The Dutchman respects Malykhin’s threat, but he isn’t too impressed by his footwork and movement and believes that Bhullar could take the fight to him if he has focused on the right part of his preparation.
“He [Bhullar] has his work cut out for him, as we know. I’m very interested to see the fight. But if Arjan has really been working his defensive boxing, his movement, and stuff, I think what Anatoly brings is not that crazy. It’s not like crazy footwork. He just cut me off very nicely. He just threw that right hand very nicely down the middle. It’s not like he has a lot of weapons,” De Ridder said in an interview with SCMP MMA.
“His weapons are very f***ing dangerous. I’m not trying to say anything disrespectful about him, of course. What he does, he does very well.”
Suspecting some rust in Arjan Bhullar due to the absence
Despite being the reigning ONE Heavyweight World Champion, “Singh” has only competed twice in ONE Championship so far, and he hasn’t been in action in over two years.
While De Ridder assuredly downplays the Indian-Canadian star’s talents, he admits that he’s looking forward to watching the World Title tilt, as Bhullar has been impressive before and could possibly be again.
“Bhullar, to be honest, doesn’t have that many weapons either. Have you ever seen him throw a kick? He boxes alright, and he wrestles alright. So we’ll see, and I’m very, very excited for this,” he said.
“He’s been out for a long time. So we can’t really say where he’s at. He’s getting on the bad side of his 30s. There are a lot of things against him. But he is a world champion, man. He’s done awesome stuff in the past, so I don’t know. I’ll be watching definitely.”