{"id":961407,"date":"2026-11-12T04:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T04:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/961407\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T04:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T04:56:15","slug":"bangkok-post-one-championship-tye-ruotolo-open-to-welterweight-mma-title-bid-plays-down-ufc-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/961407\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok Post – ONE Championship: Tye Ruotolo open to welterweight MMA title bid, plays down UFC talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lightweight champion says he signed a new deal for the Christian Lee fight and has about six bouts left across MMA and submission grappling<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Tye<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTye Ruotolo (right) celebrates at Lumpinee Stadium after adding ONE Championship\u2019s lightweight MMA title to his welterweight submission grappling crown\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Tye Ruotolo is open to pursuing a second ONE Championship MMA title at welterweight and has played down talk of a move to the UFC, after taking the lightweight belt from Christian Lee in Bangkok.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Already ONE\u2019s welterweight submission grappling world champion, the 23-year-old submitted Lee in the first round of The Inner Circle 37 main event at Lumpinee Stadium last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The win took him to 3-0 in MMA and made him the first fighter to hold ONE titles in both sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be radical,\u201d Ruotolo told the Bangkok Post when asked about the 185lb belt. \u201cI\u2019d have to put on a little muscle first and then guaranteed I\u2019ll give it a shot. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI got it done at 170. I don\u2019t see why we can\u2019t do it at 185.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Christian<\/p>\n

Christian Lee celebrates with both belts after stopping Kiamrian Abbasov to win the ONE welterweight MMA title in November 2022<\/p>\n

For now, the American considers 170lb his healthy weight. A move up would put him in a division where Lee is still champion.<\/p>\n

Lee himself moved up as lightweight champion to win the welterweight belt in November 2022, stopping Kiamrian Abbasov in the fourth round. Nearly four years on, he has yet to defend it.<\/p>\n

Ruotolo also earned a US$100,000 double performance bonus for the win over Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love where I\u2019m at, making the most money I\u2019ve ever made in my life,\u201d he said when asked about the UFC. \u201cI\u2019m fighting amazing competition, making all my goals come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruotolo told The Ariel Helwani Show this week that he signed a new ONE deal for the title opportunity against Lee. He said he has around six bouts left on the contract, which covers MMA and submission grappling.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged claims that ONE\u2019s MMA divisions had thinned in recent years but said the promotion still offered the level of competition he wanted at this stage of his career.<\/p>\n

\"Tye<\/p>\n

Tye Ruotolo (right) lands a right hand on Christian Lee during their lightweight MMA title fight at The Inner Circle 37<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m locked in with ONE for right now, for sure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ruotolo made his MMA debut against Christian\u2019s younger brother Adrian at ONE Fight Night 35 last year, winning by second-round submission. He recalled countering Adrian\u2019s early charge with a check hook before taking him down.<\/p>\n

In Ruotolo\u2019s view, Adrian\u2019s defeat shaped Christian\u2019s approach at Lumpinee. He thought Lee wanted to slow him down with leg kicks and catch him from the outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen have you ever seen Christian not just come in hot?\u201d Ruotolo told the Bangkok Post. \u201cI think based off the match with Adrian he didn\u2019t want me to grab him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruotolo said he had planned to land a shot on the feet and then take Lee down. He clipped Lee with a right hook, dropped him with a left and followed him to the canvas, finishing with a rear-naked choke at 2:08 of the first round.<\/p>\n

\"Tye<\/p>\n

Tye Ruotolo submits Christian Lee with a rear-naked choke at 2_08 of the opening round<\/p>\n

The new champion wants to stay active and is leaving the choice of his next bout to ONE. He last defended his grappling title against Pawel Jaworski at ONE Fight Night 41 in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cReady for an MMA fight, keep it going. Haven\u2019t defended my grappling belt in a while. Just give me the call and let me know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At lightweight, Magomed Magomedov has called for a title shot after beating Lucas Gabriel by split decision at ONE Fight Night 49. Magomedov missed weight for that bout.<\/p>\n

Ruotolo has a third sport in mind, too.<\/p>\n

\"Tye<\/p>\n

Tye Ruotolo (right) has his hand raised after beating Christian Lee (left) to move to 3-0 in MMA<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe right now it\u2019s really hard to do everything, but one day I\u2019m going to do a Muay Thai fight,\u201d he told ONE\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

At Lumpinee, he brought up Regian Eersel, ONE\u2019s lightweight Muay Thai and kickboxing champion, when asked about a possible debut.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m doing Muay Thai, I\u2019m definitely not scrapping Regian Eersel first, I\u2019ll tell you that much,\u201d he told the Bangkok Post with a laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lightweight champion says he signed a new deal for the Christian Lee fight and has about six bouts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":961408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,18577,786,21218,801,785,2843,85,318577,89118,9214],"class_list":["post-961407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-combat-sports","tag-fighting","tag-lumpinee-stadium","tag-martial-arts","tag-mma","tag-one-championship","tag-sports","tag-submission-grappling","tag-tye-ruotolo","tag-welterweight-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}