On May 20th, 2022 ONE Championship hosted their 157th event in Singapore. Recently the leading Asian MMA organization started organizing grappling matches and has signed with some of the most elite Jiu Jitsu competitors on the planet.
ONE 157 saw one of the most exciting moments with the debut of the Ruotolo brothers, who signed with the organization in March 2022 for both grappling and future possible MMA matches as well. The twins once again shook up the grappling world with wins over ONE FC and ADCC vets, Garry Tonon and Shinya Aoki.
Kade Ruotolo vs Shinya Aoki
Scheduled to open the grappling part of the evening, ONE Championship set Kade Ruotolo against Japanese super star Shinya Aoki.
For the past two years Kade has been considered to be one of the best, if not the best, lightweights in the sport. He earned that by winning major tournaments like ADCC North America trials, WNO Lightweight Grand Prix, and numbers of super fights all around the world.
With a very submission oriented and flashy style, Ruotolo is known to be dangerous from start to finish and especially with his famous Buggy Choke attacks coming from everywhere at any time.
For his debut in the organization the young prodigy faced the legendary Japanese MMA and Jiu Jitsu fighter, Shinya Aoki. With the nickname Tobikan Judan or in “grandmaster of the flying submission,” Aoki is no stranger to the submissions himself, and has earned a record of 30 submissions and his been at the top of his game for more than a decade and is still considered to be one of the most dangerous Jiu Jitsu practitioners in MMA.
The Japanese icon won the One Championship Lightweight title in 2013 and dominated the division for 3 years. After suffering a loss in March to fellow Japanese MMA star Yoshihiro Akiyama, the Tobikan Judan agreed to test himself against the new generation of grappling athletes.
The tale of the match was pretty much Kade controlling the positional game the entire time. Kade was able to take Aoki’s back several times, with one of the back attacks coming from jumping and pushing from the cage and securing the back almost in the air, and with that Kade put the crowd on their feet.
The Japanese vet managed to survive the submission attempts but lost the decision because of the criteria of the competitor with the most submission attempts wins.
Tye Ruotolo vs Garry Tonon
The second grappling match of the evening was the bout between two ADCC vets, Tye Ruotolo and Garry Tonon. Kade’s twin brother Tye is one of the most feared names in both welterweight and middleweight in the last two years and especially in no-gi. But against the young Atos phenom, ONE put a very dangerous and seasoned Garry Tonnon to welcome him.
Routolo made a name for himself in the last ADCC World Championship in 2019 by becoming the youngest entrant in the history of ADCC when he got invited as a late replacement and made it all the way to the Semi-Final and even competed for the Bronze medal where he lost by a decision by Paulo Miyao.
Since then, Tye has had dominant performances across a wide range of competitions. His recent wins include the Who’s Number One Middleweight Grand Prix , the IBJJF World Championship as a Brown Belt (after training Gi for only two weeks), and numbers of super fights in the top organizations around the world (WNO, Polaris, GrapplerFest, and many more).
Tonon signed with ONE Championship in 2018 and in March 2022 fought for the MMA Featherweight title where he suffered his first defeat. Holding a very impressive resume in Jiu Jitsu and grappling, Garry is a two time IBJJF No-Gi World Champion, 5 time EBI Champion and a ADCC World Championship Bronze medalist.
Wanting to make a statement that this is still his weight division, Garry immediately accepted the chance to face Tye and even in the weight-ins in the previous day didn’t shake Ruotolos hand in the stare down.
In the first second of the match Tye jumped on Tonon, setting a very aggressive and fast pace. In the first minute Tye secured a good body takedown which forced Garry to accept the bottom position. Thirty seconds later with a very aggressive standing passing attack, Ruotolo forced Tonon to turtle from where he secured his signature d’arce choke.
Tye was able to finish his experienced opponent in just 1 minute and 37 seconds, and for the fast and beautiful submission Tye was awarded a $50,000 dollars bonus.
I am black belt under Bruno Bastos and I am very passionate about Jiu Jitsu. I do the sport for 13 years. Now I am an owner and head coach at one of the biggest Jiu Jitsu academies in Bulgaria and still an active competitor.