“There’s no bad blood” - Reinier de Ridder excited to face a showman like Anatoly Malykhin

Reinier de Ridder is looking forward to mixing it up with ONE interim heavyweight world champion Anatoly Malykhin.

The two warriors are scheduled to square off in the main event of ONE on Prime Video 5 on December 2. ‘The Dutch Knight’ will put both his undefeated record and the ONE light heavyweight world title on the line when ONE Championship returns to Manila for back-to-back fight cards.

Less than two weeks before the highly-anticipated main event showdown, Reinier de Ridder spoke to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), sharing his excitement to take on a fighter that he can engage in a back-and-forth with both in and out of the circle:

“There’s no bad blood, but he’s a fun guy to mix it up a bit with. The last two guys, their English wasn’t too good anyway and they didn’t have a lot of personalities. But this guy [Malykhin], might be fun to have some fun with.”

Stepping into his eighth bout inside the circle, Reinier de Ridder is yet to know what defeat feels like. 7-0 under MMA rules in ONE Championship, ‘The Dutch Knight’ is 16-0 overall with his most notable victories coming against former ONE world champions Aung La N Sang, Kiamrian Abbasov, and Vitaly Bigdash.

Will de Ridder add another world titleholder to his list of victims at ONE on Prime Video 5 or will ‘The Dutch Knight’ fall to the Russian juggernaut?

Watch the full interview below:

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Reinier de Ridder is moving on from Arjan Bhullar

Reinier de Ridder prides himself in taking out former and reigning ONE world champions. One of the biggest names on his hit list was reigning ONE heavyweight titleholder Arjan Bhullar. Unfortunately, with Bhullar’s lack of activity, ‘The Dutch Knight’ is ready to move on. Speaking to SCMP, de Ridder said:

“Yeah, but who knows what happens to Bhullar? I’m done chasing that. He’s not available, he doesn’t want to fight. He’s not relevant at the moment.”

ONE interim heavyweight world champion Anatoly Malykhin found himself in a similar situation. After being linked to a world title unification bout with Arjan Bhullar for months, the Russian juggernaut is seemingly ready to move on. Now, he and ‘The Dutch Knight’ will have their own champion vs. champion showdown on December 2.

Reinier de Ridder vs. Anatoly Malykhin will air live and free on Amazon Prime Video with an active subscription for fans across North America.