“It was our biggest hole” – Kade Ruotolo admits leg locks were the Ruotolo twins’ kryptonite early in their careers
ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion Kade Ruotolo recently sat down with MMA legend 'Rampage' Jackson on his Jaxxon Podcast.
The two spoke about the 21-year-old world champion's stellar submission grappling career and his upcoming MMA debut at ONE 167.
One of the most feared weapons of Kade and his twin brother and fellow ONE world champion Tye is their full arsenal of leg-lock submissions. Not only are they quite technical and slick with them, they also apply tremendous pressure and intensity when finishing them.
Surprisingly, however, leg locks were once the kryptonite of the feared BJJ twins. Growing up, Tye and Kade Ruotolo excelled in nearly all aspects of submission grappling, but their leg-lock game was lagging.
This glaring hole in their game early in their careers inspired the Ruotolo brothers to double down on reinforcing their leg-lock game.
Kade Ruotolo told 'Rampage':
“Our whole lives, we did everything but leg locks, pretty much. Everything, top, bottom, everything felt sharp, except for leg locks. Obviously, it was our biggest hole. We were like 15 or 16 years old, we did this ADCC Trials and we got both our legs broken from leg locks. It was years straight, every day working on them.”
Watch the full podcast here:
Kade Ruotolo became the youngest ADCC world champion ever by using a leg lock
Now that they're multi-time world champions and have developed an all-encompassing submission game, the Ruotolo brothers are more comfortable with leg locks.
So much that they're not their main focus anymore - both in offense and defense.
Kade Ruotolo got so good with his leg locks that he made history with them, becoming the youngest ADCC world champion in history by submitting Mica Galvao with a heel hook in 2022.
He said:
"Now we’re super comfortable with them [leg locks]. I’ll attack with them here and there. It won me ADCC last year so I can’t say I don’t like them. But I’m not always looking for it or going for it."
Catch Ruotolo make his MMA debut against Blake Cooper at ONE 167, airing live in US primetime on June 7, free of charge for existing Prime Video subscribers in North America.
Relive Ruotolo's performance at ONE Fight Night 21, available on demand for Prime Video subscribers in the United States and Canada.