Tye Ruotolo's Title Run

Tye Ruotolo just won his first MMA belt after only three fights. The finishes are coming faster and we’re going to look at what he’s doing to win so quickly.

After 13 minutes and 56 seconds spread across three fights Tye Ruotolo has claimed his first professional mixed martial arts belt. This comes after winning and defending ONE Championship’s Brazilian Jiu-jitsu belt and a host of other key titles like WNO’s belt and a gold medal at the IBJJF Worlds.

Tye’s game has always been wild. His attacks build with time and he breaks opponents with pace as much as he does with his actual techniques.

Tye is still a raw MMA fighter. His punches come wide, and he whips his head around when he strikes, but he’s building a game that’s starting to coalesce around his gifts and grit.

Tye is dirty boxing like a grimy old veteran, he’s passing with the goal getting to mount to drop elbows, and as soon as his opponents turn away from Tye he’s on their back. Strangling them quicker and quicker as his career progresses.

His first fight ended after 9 minutes and fourteen seconds. His next ended in less than 210 seconds. Then he shaved 18 seconds off to take a title. Here we’re going to go fight-by-fight to look at what he did to win that first belt off of ONE’s wunderkind, Christian Lee. Funny enough, Tye’s run started against Christian’s brother Adrian.

Tye spent about two minutes posturing up in Adrian’s closed guard. Adrian would try to counter with triangles, arm bars, and an active high guard overall. But Tye was able to stay composed and start sliding to a better position on the floor.

Above is something Tye does often in both MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He pins his opponent’s arm with his shin while trying to tight pass. That keeps their shoulders to the mat so the they can’t wrestle up easily.

Tye was not able to finish the fight from mount in the first round. Adrian kicked his legs up in front of Tye to push him away and get back to his feet. In the second Adrian walked on the ropes to get up.

Clips like this are why I’m so high on Tye. Yes he lost position, but he didn’t give up the initiative. He kept pressing, found a different spot, and started striking.

Good grapplers have to recognize the need to do damage if they want to turn into good fighters.

Tye didn’t let the fight stay standing for long after this.

Tye’s second fight started same-same but different from the first. He immediately pressured in behind his new striking skills. This time his opponent gave ground instead of firing back. Tye took the angle to get a quick and easy takedown.

Isojima used the fence to fight back to his feet but Tye made the most of his positional advantage.

Again this is a positive sign. Tye isn’t running away to reshoot. He’s holding onto his lead to hurt his opponent.

You did all that work to get them there. You have to make the most of it by chipping away at their defenses and stamina.

Standing over an opponent who is rising to their feet to throw knees like this is what we see from the better modern ground and pounders like Anthony Hernandez.

Tye kept following after Isojima to hang on his head and pull him into punches. It reminded me of Ruotolo’s coach, Erik Paulson’s, former student Josh Barnett.

Eventually Isojima was able to get a body lock his own. The judo black belt walked forward into Tye. Tye walked with Isojima and lulled him into a massive turn throw.

As soon as Isojima’s shoulders turned up Tye took exploited the angle for a rear naked choke.

Ruotolo started his title fight different. He wasn’t working for takedowns. He was swinging wide, throwing kicks at his Lee’s head, and daring him to close the distance.

Tye is something of a throwback fighter. He dares opponents to try to take him down by throwing as hard as possible. Worst case scenario he gets to use his world class Brazilian jiu-jitsu, best case scenario is what you’ll see below.

Lee turned belly down to try to shake Tye off the top. But as soon as his hands touched the floor he lost the ability to hand fight and the fight moments after.

This win leaves Tye is in a weird spot. He’s the young champion of an inactive division.

Christian Lee’s last 3 opponents were Alibeg Rasulov who hasn’t fought in a year, Kiamrian Abbasov who is no longer in the promotion, and Rae Yoon Ok who is fighting Tye’s brother Kade in a month!

Tye could fight Magomed Magomedov next but then he’s nearly out of options without ONE. Fortunately he has a few things not many other fighters do.

Tye Ruotolo has been a professional athlete since he was a teenager. He first qualified for the ADCC World Championships at 16 and he grew up on Brazilian jiu-jitsu mats with his brother Kade.

Tye started grappling for ONE Championship at 19. That’s when he submitted Brazilian jiu-jitsu star Garry Tonon. Since then match Tye has beaten UFC light heavyweight Reinier de Ridder, Dante Leon, Izaak Michell, in addition to the current -88KG ADCC Champion and third place winner Pawel Jaworski and Jozef Chen.

Tye is dominating matches across different weight classes and sports. More importantly Tye has accumulated $450,000 in bonus money from ONE Championship alone.

All of this means Tye has two things most combat sports athletes do not. Youth and money. That he means he can afford to be patient.

It’s hard to get leverage in fighting. You’re always at mercy of the highest bidder if you have any to choose from at all. But with a brand as strong as Tye’s that happens to have acquired elite sponsorships like Tenōre, you have to think Tye has carved out a unique position to negotiate from.

Last week I sent out a paid article about how Tye and Kade Ruotolo are taking over combat sports. I’ll be adding to it as their careers advance.

This article primarily focused on the first major cash event the twins won. 2021’s FloGrappling WNO Championship. There these mean beat Mica Galvao, Diego Pato, and a handful of other elite grapplers.

If you want to learn more about the Ruoloto’s career before they take over fighting read the article below👇.