Submission-hunter Kade Ruotolo despises grapplers who love to pull guard: "You can't just bore the audience"
In the few years that he has climbed to the top, Kade Ruotolo has become a fantastic ambassador for the sport of submission grappling. The ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion promotes a lot of things that he believes would make the sport better.
For starters, putting on exciting contests is always something that both Kade and his twin brother Tye have on their minds. Fortunately, their high pace and aggressive submission-chasing style means that they're always the ones pressing the action.
The counterpoint to that, however, is that many grapplers do not have the same approach and use a more defensive game by fighting off their backs. This can be somewhat slow, and difficult to watch for those who aren't interested in the intricacies of submission grappling.
In a recent interview with B-Team Jiu Jitsu, Kade gave his thoughts and feelings on the matter and how he wishes it would change:
"I feel like with those guard players I just, you know, I feel when you sit on your back and wait for the guy to come at you it's the same thing as me just sitting there and waiting for you to come at me, you know what I mean? And I just think there needs to be some sort of like, hey, if you're sitting there and it's not working you got to at least try something else you know? You can't just bore the audience, you know. It's just not my thing."
Watch the full interview below:
Kade Ruotolo will continue to push the pace
Kade Ruotolo is a super athlete, and combines excellent physical ability with the highest level of grappling IQ to overwhelm opponents.He is putting on exciting matches and coming out on top as evidenced in his recent CJI win or previous ADCC performances.
It's a style that works very effectively for him, but it's not something that others could look to replicate if they don't put in the same level of hard work.
Following a debut MMA win at ONE 167, Kade is back at ONE 169 on Nov. 8 where he faces Ahmed Mujtaba in a lightweight MMA tie inside the Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.