Reinier De Ridder believes Jiri Prochazka and Israel Adesanya would be "easy match-ups"
Reiner De Ridder has established himself as one of the best in the world in two different weight classes. The 15-0 star is preparing to defend his middleweight belt against Vitaly Bigdash at ONE 159 on July 22. Ridder also holds the strap at light heavyweight.
As an undefeated two-division king in ONE Championship, 'The Dutch Knight' often gets asked about his counterparts in the UFC. His equivalent titles are currently held by Israel Adesanya at 185lbs and newly-crowned 205lbs champ Jiri Prochazka.
In a recent interview with Sporstskeeda MMA, when asked how he would fare against the two UFC champions, De Ridder was confident of getting his hand raised against both:
"Those two guys are easy match-ups man. If you've seen the [Jiri] fight with Glover , there's not a lot of skills on the ground. He's unpredictable of course, so you don't want to eat too many shots from him but he's very beatable."
The Breda-born fighter then said:
"Izzy is [very beatable] as well. He does evolve from fight to fight so maybe on the next one he's going to show some newskills, but I think those two guys are very beatable. There's guys underneath there like the top five worldwide that are much harder match-ups. Gegard [Mousasi] my training partner is of course up there."
De Ridder clarified that although Mousasi would do well in ONE Championship, he would never fight the Bellator champion as they are close friends.
Reinier De Ridder is a "big fan of Buchecha"
'The Dutch Knight' has made no secret of his desire to win three world titles in ONE. The 6'4 Dutchman would love a crack at the heavyweight belt, and in the wake of his last fight he spent some time training at several top gyms, including American Top Team (ATT). Interestingly, it seems this was where Ridder rolled with heavyweight contender Marcus 'Buchecha' Almeida.
Check out the Instagram post below:
The pair could be destined to fight each other one day, but with the Brazilian still in the early days of his pro MMA career, it's all love for now:
"I'm a big fan of Buchecha... the way he moves. From the first few fights he's had, you can really see he is transitioning well from being a pure grappler to being an MMA grappler and his striking looks very good, his takedowns are great, he's really in control and it's a good sight to see."
Discussing his upcoming bout, Ridder suggested he's not too impressed with Bigdash and intends to finish him in the second round.
Following this, the two division champion would like to fight once again this year and is hoping to secure a bout against the winner of the proposed heavyweight title fight between Anatoly Malykhin and Arjan Bhullar.