Tye Ruotolo says he and twin brother Kade welcomed grappling with older opponents as kids: “I never had anyone take it easy”

Brazilian jiu-jitsu icon and youngest IBJJF gold medalist, Tye Ruotolo, is looking to add more gold to his growing collection of achievements at ONE Fight Night 16 on November 3. Across the Circle from him will be former ADCC competitor Magomed Abdulkadirov, who is making his promotional debut.

Tye Ruotolo and his brother Kade are considered one of the most dangerous pairs of siblings in the combat sports world. It's hard to name another set of siblings - let alone twins - who achieved success in combat sports quite like the Ruotolo boys.

Kade and Tye Ruotolo grew up covered in gold as they started training at 3 years old and quickly rose to become jiu-jitsu's first-ever sibling child stars. By the time they reached puberty, the two were already making headlines both in the national and international grappling scenes.

Kade and Tye were beating bigger and more seasoned black belts while they were still just purple belts. Even when they were just in the juvenile divisions, where they could have taken full-grown men, the Ruotolos were forced to mix it up with boys and girls their age.

On facing little girls on the competitive mats, Tye Ruotolo told ONE:

"I never had anyone take it easy on Kade and I growing up. You know, there was always the weirdest thing when you're a kid because when you're a kid, they can still mix boys and girls, right? So everyone knows I'd have to fight a girl, you know, and I always hate doing that. And that was always, like, the weirdest thing for me. I never liked it back in the day, there were some tough girls too, you know, that was the thing. So it was always a lose-lose, you know, that was always like the worst. For me."

Catch Tye Ruotolo face Magomed Abdulkadirov for the inaugural ONE welterweight submission grappling world title at ONE Fight Night 16, which goes down at the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium. The event will be available live and for free to North American fans with an active Amazon Prime Video subscription.