“It's always very fulfilling” – Reinier de Ridder finds solace in teaching BJJ classes at Combat Brothers

Former ONE light-heavyweight and reigning middleweight MMA world champion Reinier de Ridder will play the role of the hunted again as he defends his belt against Anatoly Malykhin at ONE 166: Qatar.

Back in late 2022, it was Malykhin who viciously took Reinier de Ridder's light-heavyweight belt and handed him his first career loss. After the bout, 'The Dutch Knight' took a lengthy time away from competition to recuperate and recover.

As it turned out, for the past few months, ReinRidder used teaching Jiujitsu as a way to take his mind off fighting by sharing his knowledge with others.

He told ONE:

“Yeah, my good buddy and my coach Harun [Ozkan]. So he's always in my corner as well. We do it together. Yeah, we run the gym together. And it's doing very well. It's very busy. A lot of people coming in, we're looking for a new building in the future. So trying to expand. And that's a cool thing at school to teach a little bit."

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Reinier de Ridder finds it energizing to teach normal people and see them improve in Jiujitsu

In the interview, Reinier de Ridder explained how teaching people outside pro-fighting helps him have a different kind of motivation to come to the gym:

"I don't get the chance to teach every day because it's a lot of work, as well, of course. But I teach a couple days a week, and it's always very fulfilling to see that normal people, not people who make a living out of this, who devote their life to fighting, but like normal people who are lawyers or they have a normal job, a normal life.

"They come in and they try to kill each other on the mats. It's all very cool to me. It gives me a lot of energy to see them when they go at it.”

This is a different side of the usually brash and confident world champion. Perhaps his first loss has given him a different perspective on fighting and martial arts. We're eager to see how this translates in the ring on fight night.

ONE 166: Qatar will air live on March 1 free of charge for existing Prime Video subscribers in the United States and Canada.