A Lesson in Violence: Reinier de Ridder's Dirty Boxing and Judo Throws

 Prefatory Matters

The conversation about judo’s efficacy in the MMA META has largely cooled since the end of the Rousey revolution. There are notable exceptions, America's greatest judoka in history Kayla Harrison is the current women's bantamweight champion at the time of this writing. For the most part though, conversations about judo in MMA are relegated to the odd Uchi Mata or Osoto Gari. Perhaps it is this banishment to the fringes of MMA fandom that surging middleweight contender, and former One double champ, Reinier de Ridder’s judo background is so underappreciated. Judo can be broken down into three main parts: Kumi-Kata or grip fighting, Tachi-Waza or throwing and Ne-Waza or ground fighting. The Ne-Waza aspect of judo is what Helio Gracie expanded upon about a century ago to create modern day Brazilian jiu-jitsu. RdR, a BJJ black belt and incredible submission threat is known as a challenging grappler because of his ground work but upon a closer inspection we can see how the Kumi-Kata and Tachi-Waza are actually crucial to his style and rise to the top. 

The Dirty Boxing of RdR

Reinier de Ridder is a truly tricky and clever infighter.  Before covering his clinch tactics it may be worthwhile to examine how he closes the distance with his opponents to implement his attacks. When leading, de Ridder has 4 primary moves in his arsenal and each can be used as an entry into the clinch. RdR’s weapons of choice are the teep, dipping jab, stepping knee, and the single leg shot. Perhaps the most obvious choice for a fighter looking to make close contact to an opponent is to shoot a take down. Being a southpaw it makes sense that RdR’s shot of choice is the single leg. 

While RdR does sometimes get his opponent to the ground with this, his game is almost built around working off of a failed shot. RdR very frequently takes failed single leg attempts and chain wrestles to transition them into clinch positions.

It is rare that a grappler in MMA finds success without a curated list of strikes to set up their take downs. The first of these for RdR is the teep. Standing at 6’4 de Ridder has an incredibly long frame for a middleweight and his teep is one of his longest weapons. Like the jab, any long fighter will find themselves well suited to keep the distance from the opponent by using a long teep. 

This distance control is doubly frustrating when you know that your opponent is a skilled infighter that would like nothing more than to make contact with you. Rather than retracting his teep RdR sometimes gains the initiative on his opponent by bringing his foot directly down and clearing a massive amount of distance allowing himself to potentially initiate the clinch.

Another blitzing move from RdR that works on similar principles but has a shorter range is the stepping knee. Of all of the techniques in RdR’s bag of tricks this is perhaps the most consistently damaging. In his fight with Robert Whittaker this strike to the body was his main key to victory.

Often de Ridder will look to land this as an intercepting counter, drilling his opponent as they step in. Intercepting an opponent acts as a dramatic force multiplier as you create a head on collision between their body and your strike. 

Similar principles apply to de Ridder's dipping jab. Keeping the pay offs high and the risks low, RdR throws out his long jab while changing his headslot low and towards his rear side, bringing his head even further from the reach of any possible incoming counters. Here we can see RdR trying to keep his range either all the way out or all the way in against Leandro Ataides. RdR resorts to almost spamming this jab as a way of constantly measuring the opponent and fighting only at the ranges he feels comfortable at.

If an opponent attempts to slip this jab or if they stay in the same spot and simply let RdR take a step forward while keeping his arm out they have unwittingly allowed de Ridder an opportunity to collar tie, overhook or tricep control. 

It is at this point that we should revisit our first judo principle mentioned before, the Kumi-Kata. Up until now the name of the game has been to simply initiate contact with the opponent, but it is once this threshold is passed that RdR’s striking truly shines. When transitioning from any martial art into MMA learning how to adjust the martial arts skills you already know is the trait that a truly great fighter must have. As anyone going from a Gi sport into a No Gi sport will tell you the grips are different but the principles of control remain. While there may be no lapels or sleeves to grab onto, RdR still uses the principles of Kumi-Kata to stay incredibly sticky to his opponent and near impossible to escape once he has his hands on you. In a southpaw vs orthodox stance in judo the conventional strategy is to grab the lapel with the lead hand and sleeve with the far hand.

While there are no lapels here we can see RdR often attacks from a similar position trapping the opponents arm with a lead side overhook and then fighting to control the wrist or tricep. 

From here he can look to either push their arm past their center line or extend their wrist out. Either opens their body and leaves them exposed to punishing knees. 

Another option in this dirty boxing sequence is to throw uppercuts to the body. These uppercuts straight to the body seem like the kind of punch that would be thrown by a bully or villain in an 80s action movie and left Bobby knuckles absolutely run ragged by the 5th round of their bout. 

A good principle in fighting is to always be creating asymmetries between you and your opponents abilities to attack. De Ridder's clinch game makes good use of this principle. Where some fighters will push themselves firmly chest to chest or belly to belly, de Ridder always works to immediately create an angle from the clinch position to open up his striking or threatening throwing techniques. 

Here we can see RdR working far off to the side and end up in a Schultz headlock position and begin throwing knees to the opponent

One of Reinier de Ridder’s favorite techniques is to take his overhook side and rather than apply a wrestling style whizzer where he creates downward force on his opponent's shoulder, use a standing overhook and extend his arm across his body. 

This helps de Ridder either block the forearm of his opponent's opposite hand or attack the wrist with an overhook wrist trap. One of this writer's favorite techniques, the beauty of the overhook wrist trap is that with a single arm you trap both your opponents arms and leave a free hand to strike at a near defenseless opponent. 

This technique was instrumental in RdR’s highest profile win against Bo Nickal. Observe how he traps both of Bo’s arms and then absolutely batters the defenseless Nickal with his free hand.

THE JUDO THROWS

Reinier de Ridder is primarily known as a terrifying threat on the ground. While we’ve discussed how the Kumi-Kata of RdR makes him dangerous on the feet, the specifics of his BJJ game that make his Ne-Waza so dangerous will have to be relegated to another work elsewhere. Here I want to focus on the Tachi-Waza or throwing techniques of de Ridder and why they make him such an effective take down threat in MMA. The principles of Tachi-Waza in judo can also be broken down into 3 separate parts or phases of a throw: 

1. Kazushi or the breaking down of the opponents posture 

2. Tsukuri or the moving and joining of your body into the throwing position

3. Kake the execution of the throw

In Kazhusi there are 2 goals: move the opponent from his stance to the direction you want him to go then control and break their posture. In MMA the addition of striking and cagecraft can disguise the Kazushi stages of a throw. While the opponent is working to not be pressed backwards or turned, or worrying about fighting the hands to not be clubbed in the body from dirty boxing techniques they have unwittingly begun working themselves into a throwing technique. Observe this sequence against Aung La Nsang.

RdR has him fighting off the clinch, then moves his leg into throwing position (Tsukuri) and finally executes the throw by spiraling Nsang over his tripping leg (Kake). 

The principle of Tsukuri is another reason that RdR’s take down threat is so dangerous. The wide catalog of throws gives his opponents far more options to worry about than a simple blast double coming from straight at you. I will not harm any potential judoka reading this by mislabeling a number of throws, but will say that RdR’s arsenal includes throws and trips that can attack either behind, or in front of either of his opponents legs. One example of this is how RdR finishes his single leg attacks. As shown before, sometimes he is able to simply run the pipe and finish the take down, other times he resorts to lifting the leg of his opponent and then sweeping the supporting leg out from underneath them. Here we see against Aung La he sweeps behind his opponent's leg to finish the take down.

Here against Bobby Knuckles we see sweeping in front of the leg sending the opponent face down.

The wide arsenal of attacks also means that RdR can attack a throw at any position regardless of his hips relation to yours. Where a blast double will always surely come from in front of you, de Ridder has take down options if his hips are parallel to yours or perpendicular, facing towards you, or away from you.

Here we see his hips perpendicular to his opponent leading to an outside sweep behind both legs.

Here Hips perpendicular behind the opponent, the sweeping of the leg sends him over his hips

Here we have an outside trip from his hips parallel to his opponents

Here Hips are behind opponent and he sweeps out the front legs sending them face first

Results:

The judo or RdR is not just an incidental or footnote worthy portion of his skill set. The principles of judo and his skill as a judoka are the lifeblood of his unique and entertaining style. We’ve seen it inform both his dirty boxing and takedown threats and it begs the question if any of this could make him a contender of the UFC middleweight crown. At the time of this writing the current middleweight king is Khamzat Chimaev who I’m sure would open as a massive favorite against RdR. RdR is not someone who looks unbeatable in his fights, in fact some of the unique loveability of RdR rests in his fallibility as a fighter. But with his clever work on the ground, a wide catalog of throws that actually may put Khamzat on his back, and body work that could wear down the champ, I believe that Reinier de Ridder poses a serious threat to the title.