"I don't have a lot of fear in me" - Kade Ruotolo grateful he exercised patience to find the perfect team for MMA debut
Kade Ruotolo now feels ready and set up for success in this new chapter of his career.
The ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion had been speaking for a long time about wanting to make the switch to MMA.
He finally made this jump at ONE 167 in June, where he submitted Blake Cooper in the first round to get his hand raised inside the Impact Arena.
With how well his training camp appeared to go, Kade is already excited to jump right back in to fully commit to his MMA transition.
He revealed during an interview on The MMA Hour that one of the factors that led to this move taking some time was finding the right team.
Having never needed an MMA corner in the past, he wanted to make sure that he was working alongside the right coaches for his career rather than jumping right in at the deep end:
"Absolutely, I'm super happy with my team. That was what made this debut take so long was mentallty I just wanted to fight already. I have a lot of fight in me, I don't have a lot of fear in me, you know. I'm always excited and ready to go but the thing is, I never had a solid team behind me."
Watch the full interview below:
Kade Ruotolo is up and running in MMA
With a solid team around him and a debut win under his belt, Kade Ruotolo is ready to take the lightweight MMA division by storm in the coming years.
However, he still intends to maintain submission grappling on the side, even if this will become more of a secondary focus as time goes on.
His next contest under the ONE Championship banner sees him defend his lightweight title in a grappling super fight with flyweight king Mikey Musumeci.
The two men will meet at the Ball Arena on September 6 in a huge moment for submission grappling.
Tickets for ONE 168: Denver are available via Ticketmaster.