Kade Ruotolo on juvenile mistake made during training camp

There are some things that Kade Ruotolo cannot help doing when he wants to get an adrenaline rush.

While he was deep into his training camp preparing for Tommy Langaker, the reigning ONE lightweight submission grappling world champion figured in a skateboarding accident near his home in California.

Despite the scare, Ruotolo managed to retain his world title against Langaker in the co-main event of ONE Fight Night 11 this past weekend at the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium.

Ruotolo told South China Morning Post during his post-fight interview that he didn’t know the exact reason why he went skateboarding during training camp.

“That was probably the biggest lesson learned from this one. I live right next to this massive hill, and it goes down to the beach and I've always eyed it out, I'm going to bomb it one day. I don't know what got into me but a couple of weeks ago, I'm finally doing it.”

Ruotolo added that he couldn’t get his balance perfectly and that a minor mistake caused him to fall over:

"I started drifting, and on like my third drift down, I was like, oh, too much speed, and then boom, I fell over my wrist, my ankle, and yeah, kind of tweaked it out a bit.”

Nevertheless, Ruotolo still did his job of retaining the belt against Langaker in Bangkok.

Ruotolo’s overall aggression and late-match Estima lock was enough for the judges to award him the unanimous decision pushing his record to 4-0 in ONE Championship.

The 20-year-old has now fought in three world title matches in ONE Championship with two successive defenses against Matheus Gabriel and Langaker.