When he’s not battling the best ground fighters on the planet, reigning ONE Lightweight Submission Grappling World Champion Kade Ruotolo can typically be found surfing the biggest waves he can find.

This Friday, in the co-main event of ONE Fight Night 11: Eersel vs. Menshikov on Prime Video, the Californian will put his surfboard aside to defend his World Title against Tommy Langaker – a man long-considered to be Europe’s top male grappler.

Kade Ruotolo’s awesome BJJ skills had evolved from his habit of surfing

When he makes the walk to the ring at the iconic Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand, Ruotolo will bring with him not only a lifetime of intense training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but also thousands of hours of experience surfing the coasts of California and Coast Rica. Inspired by his father’s own obsession with surfing, the lightweight submission grappling king and his twin brother Tye Ruotolo – who is also an undefeated ONE athlete – have been catching waves since they were toddlers.

He explained, “Surfing, jiu-jitsu, skateboarding, it was before we can remember, like 3 years old. It all spirals down from our dad. Our dad, his three main things in life are jiu-jistu, surfing, and skateboarding. We’re pretty much mirror images of him, clones of him. That’s just what we find the most pleasure in doing.”

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Now 20 years old, undefeated as a BJJ black belt, and widely regarded as the world’s best pound-for-pound grappler, Ruotolo credits a great deal of his incredible success to his time spent surfing, “The main thing is it requires balance, which obviously you need in jiu-jitsu. Strength, you need to be strong. If you’re weak surfing, then you’re not going to get very far, especially when the waves are coming.”

Surfing also developed Kade Ruotolo’s mental resolve

But beyond the obvious physical benefits of surfing, the BJJ prodigy says it has also helped him develop his unbreakable mindset. After all, staring down monster waves in open water requires serious mental fortitude – the same fortitude he’ll rely on when he squares off with Langaker this Friday.

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Ruotolo added, “You might take a bomb on the head, and then all of a sudden you swim three, four strokes to the surface, and then you got four more [waves] coming. That’s all mental. You start thinking, ‘Am I even going to make it under these four?’ So, there’s so much mental strength and physical strength involved in surfing, so it definitely translates to jiu-jitsu.”