“Stay away from the fridge” – Anatoly Malykhin shares hilarious plan to make the middleweight limit vs. Reinier de Ridder

The road to becoming a top-tier star in the world of combat sports always differs from athlete to athlete as there are those who prefer to let their skills do the talking while others are able to get into marquee fights with the power of their charisma alone.

In today's landscape, every athlete lets their words fly in order to sell fights, but few can do it as great as ONE Championship star Anatoly Malykhin.

The current ONE light heavyweight and heavyweight MMA world champion has endeared himself greatly to MMA fans thanks to the combination of his fighting prowess combined with his always humorous and entertaining interviews.

"Sladkiy" is set to fight Reinier de Ridder once again at ONE 166 in March for the right to become a three-division world champion, as he challenges ‘The Dutch Knight’ for his ONE middleweight MMA world title.

Fans have been wondering how Malykhin will be able to make weight for the bout and he happily flexed his sharp wit in an interview with ONE Championship:

“The main strategy is to… after 6 p.m. If I don’t come near the fridge after that, I’m fine – I’m making weight. It is clear that cardio is also important, but the main thing is not to raid the fridge after 6 p.m.”

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Anatoly Malykhin's road to double-champ status

The Russian star logged a TKO victory in his promotional debut against Alexandre Machado in 2021 and fans were quick to rally around him.

A pair of knockouts against Amir Aliakbari and Kirill Grishenko in 2022 saw him be crowned the interim ONE heavyweight MMA king and he later dethroned de Ridder for the ONE light heavyweight MMA strap.

He would go on to become the undisputed heavyweight champion by putting away Arjan Bhullar via TKO in the third round.