Tye Ruotolo left Bangkok with his ONE Welterweight Submission Grappling World Title intact after a grinding third defense at ONE Fight Night 41: Sinsamut vs. Jarvis on Prime Video on Friday, March 13, inside Lumpinee Stadium. It was the toughest test of his title reign.

The 23-year-old Californian opened the bout with a moment months in the making — a pro wrestling-style spear off the ropes that sent challenger Pawel Jaworski crashing to the mat. He had rehearsed the move with twin brother Kade before ever deploying it in competition.

Polish IBJJF No-Gi World Champion Jaworski recovered and made life difficult for the rest of the 10 minutes. His leg locks, flexible guard, and inversion-heavy game presented a puzzle the champion found harder to crack than expected. Jaworski scored a catch with under two minutes left before Ruotolo countered with a deep mounted choke to level the count. A late triangle choke sealed the judges’ decision in the champion’s favor.

“I just sent it on the ropes, and that’s a hard move to defend. My opponent did not even try to defend. He looked like a deer in the headlights. It worked out pretty well,” Ruotolo said.

“I was stoked. It felt good. At one point, it felt like I was pretty horizontal in the air. So I felt like there was definitely some good momentum, some good inertia. It felt fun for sure.”

Tye heading back to the lab with eyes on the Lees

Tye Ruotolo won, but he wasn’t satisfied. Splitting his preparation between MMA — where he went 2-0 in late 2025 against Adrian Lee and Shozo Isojima — and submission grappling left visible rust on his game. His submission grappling record moved to 37-12 and the belt stayed, but the standard he holds himself to demands more.

The post-fight call-out turned heads. Rather than chase another rematch with Adrian Lee, Ruotolo wants something bigger — the Ruotolos against Christian and Adrian Lee on a single card in MMA. He envisions the kind of family-versus-family collision that would light up the global stage.

“I felt a little rusty in there, to say the least. I’m normally three or four steps ahead of my opponents. This time, I just felt a little slower than normal. A little rusty, and I think it’s just a lack of training in jiu-jitsu and too much focus on MMA,” he said.

“It’s not towards the top, I’d say it’s a little bit on the lower side. But yeah, it’s all good. It’s part of the process. And I know that this is gonna fire me up for the next time. I’m gonna get back to the lab with my brother, work on all this stuff that we’ve been lagging on.

“I don’t think they’d be open to that, but I was meaning it for MMA — the Lees. I think Adrian called me out after his last fight, which I saw somewhere. So I just thought, man, instead of fighting Adrian again, it’d be sick if we had the Ruotolos versus the Lees on one card. That would be super interesting.”