"It's not very noticeable" - Anatoly Malykhin claims sneaky knee strike forced Reinier de Ridder to call it quits in Qatar rematch
When the main event of ONE 166: Qatar came to an end, many thoughts that Anatoly Malykhin had broken Reinier de Ridder's spirit inside the Lusail Sports Arena.
The result began to feel inevitable by the time the third round came along as the undefeated Russian continued to chip away at his opponent.
As the defending middleweight world champion started to visibly tire, the history-making Malykhin only continued to pile on the pressure.
The end of the fight came when after a brief grappling exchange on the ground, de Ridder was unable to answer the referee's calls for him to return to his feet.
Though a lot of people believed this to be due to exhaustion, Malykhin thinks that it was a strike that caused this damage.
He told MMA Junkie that it was a knee that he landed that led to the ending of the fight where 'The Dutch Knight' simply couldn't muster the strength to get back to his feet. He said:
"I think he didn't stand up from the ground, not because he was tired, maybe you couldn't see it very clearly in the video, it's not very noticeable, but I hit him with a knee and it was a pretty strong knee so I think that's why he didn't get up."
Watch the full interview below:
Anatoly Malykhin was absolutely relentless at ONE 166: Qatar
Such was the relentless nature of his performance in Qatar that Anatoly Malykhin essentially forced de Ridder to quit in their title fight at ONE 166.
Every body shot that landed appeared to take something out of the defending champion and so, his failure to get back to his feet in the third round wasn't neccesarily surprising.
Though the finish still came due to the accumulation of strikes to the body that he landed, the knee from Malykhin may well have been the shot that sealed the deal.
Whether it was one strike that finished it or the ten previous, it was a dominant performance from Malykhin who made history as a three-weight world champion, the first to ever achieve the feat in the sport's history.
North American viewers who missed out on any of the action from ONE 166: Qatar can rewatch the entire event back via the free on demand replay on Prime Video.