Tye Ruotolo says Magomed Abdulkadirov did a ‘good job’ escaping heel hook: "He made sure I didn’t get too deep on it”

At ONE Fight Night 16 last weekend, Tye Ruotolo was unable to find the submission victory to put a cap on his performance and close the show in style.

Despite the added stakes of competing for the inaugural ONE welterweight submission grappling world championship, the contest itself played out like any other matchup for either of the Ruotolo brothers.

With their constant pace that allows them to regularly threaten with submissions, the two 20-year old prodigies have proven themselves to be particularly effective in the ruleset applied by ONE Championship.

Though they are clearly two of the best in the world given their success outside of the circle, competing in ONE brings the best out of them by favouring aggression and output.

Tye’s opponent Magomed Abdulkadirov showed some good defensive skills and a lot of heart to make it to the end of the 10-minute time limit without being submitted.

Having given his opponent credit for that, Ruotolo is still disappointed to have not secured one of the several attacks that could have led to an early night.

One of his biggest threats in the contest was a heel hook attempt that Tye Ruotolo says didn’t end the contest because of his opponent’s quick reactions.

During his press conference after being crowned the world champion, he spoke about specifically what Abdulkadirov did well to stop that submission:

“Yeah, I know, it was close, but still wasn't in perfectly, you know, he did a good job of, of acting on it, you know, when he did, and he made sure I didn't get too deep on it. So I just kept transitioning from there.”

Watch the full post-fight press conference below:

North American viewers with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription can rewatch all the action from ONE Fight Night 16 via the free event replay.