{"id":225240,"date":"2025-10-19T19:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/225240\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T19:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T19:36:07","slug":"reinier-de-ridder-coach-release-statements-after-ufc-vancouver-towel-toss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/225240\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinier de Ridder, coach release statements after UFC Vancouver towel toss"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reinier de Ridder walked into UFC Vancouver one strong win away from a potential title shot. He left with a disappointing loss to Brendan Allen that saw his coaches throw in the towel<\/a> after their fighter was so exhausted he couldn\u2019t get off the stool for the fifth round.<\/p>\n

It was a total collapse, and de Ridder took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain the situation to his fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevastated by the loss,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBattled norovirus all week, could hardly stand, and broke my hand in Round 1, making it tough to fight. Gave everything I had.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Ridder\u2019s coach Harun Ozkan took ownership of the decision to throw in the towel and shared why he did it in a lengthy statement on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night didn\u2019t go as we wanted,\u201d Ozkan wrote. \u201cAfter a very strong start in the first round, things quickly started fading and we couldn\u2019t really recover from the shots in and after the second round. I made the call to stop the fight after the fourth round. I take full responsibility for that decision and it was the right call to make for me in the moment. It\u2019s not a decision I ever wanted to make, but I guess sometimes you have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to coach, but also to look out for my fighter\u2019s health. I\u2019ve been with Reinier for basically his whole career and saw too many signs that made me step in. If I didn\u2019t do anything, he would\u2019ve continued the fight. Rather than risk unnecessary damage, I decided to call it a day and go home as healthy as possible. Live to fight another day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The call has led to a lot of fans (and some fighters)<\/a> throwing a lot of hate Team de Ridder\u2019s way, but that doesn\u2019t bother Reinier\u2019s coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely do not care about pleasing others if it comes at the cost of someone\u2019s health,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a thin line between \u2018being tough\u2019 and watching out for your health. This sport can be brutal. These guys sacrifice a lot of their life in and out of the cage. There\u2019s no need for excess damage if it can be avoided. Most people forget they\u2019re human too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cZero excuses for this loss, we knew what we were going for. We are not happy with this performance, but for now recovery first, evaluate some stuff and we will be back next year. It has been an amazing year overall and thankful for all the highs and lows in life. Proud of you my brother Reinier. We\u2019ve come a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss drops de Ridder to 4-1 in the UFC and 21-3 in MMA. Hopefully he\u2019ll have a chance to compete healthy soon and erase the memory of this one from everyone\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reinier de Ridder walked into UFC Vancouver one strong win away from a potential title shot. He left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-225240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}